Evil Crawls Within
by Bandit3
Summary: The Digidestined have dealt with viruses before, but now a new strain arises that could spell the end for all of them...
1. Prologue

Evil Crawls Within  
A Digimon fanfic by Bandit O_o  
  
"He who battles with monsters must take care, lest he thus become a monster; and if you gaze too long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -Friedrich Nieschz  
  
Prologue  
Deep within the forests of the Digital world, a large stone monolith lay crumbled, as though in tribute to a long-lost, ancient civilization. However, this remnant of a great empire was also a ruined tool of evil...  
Destroyed by its very creator, the once fear-inspiring Control Spire now made a mere ridge in the grass of the forest floor, overgrown with grass, with the black stone peeping through here and there like the spine of a decaying animal. Around it, other Spires lay, all destroyed by Ken and Wormon in one of their first sweeps of the area. Their power gone, their meaning lost, their memory fading from the minds of the Digimon they had once held captive, they seemed to have served their last to the powers of darkness.  
That illusion was about to end. What is created in darkness will always be useful to darkness, even in its most shattered state.  
Near the spire lay another bit of black, shining through the grass. If one looked closely, it would be clear that this was no spire, but a curved band of metal, engraved with strange symbols and broken in several places. The Dark Ring had been blown off of a trapped Digimon even before the Spires had fallen.  
The elements needed for disaster were all present...save one.  
That missing element was supplied by Chance, the cruelest villain of them all. A gust of wind fluttered the leaves of the forest trees, and a little whirlwind of dust and dead leaves blew past, passing over the Dark Ring as it went by. From it, a few bits of debris fell, landing around the Ring and the Spire. The leaves and dust settled innocently to the ground.  
But a few long, gray-white filaments drifted slowly downwards, to alight on the Ring itself. As they touched it, the evil left in them seemed to recognize the evil traced in the symbols of the Ring, for both began to glow, with a dull white light.  
The hairs straightened, and became inflexible...then slowly lifted into the air again. As they did, the Ring suddenly dissolved into glittering light, hovering around them in a cloud. There was a moment of silence, before the now needle-like hairs plunged into the spent rubble that remained of the Spire. The halo of light, still around them, melted into the stone as well.  
For a drawn-out second, nothing happened.  
Then, the Spire dissolved into a dark cloud of mist. Drifting upward and over the grass that had collapsed into the trench it left, the mist began to spread outward, unrolling long fingers of mist toward the other Spires lying nearby. As it touched them, they too dissolved, adding to the growing fogbank in a rapidly doubling and tripling chain reaction.  
A nearby bush rustled, and a pair of large eyes looked out. The Unimon growled softly at this thing spreading through its clearing. It took a step forward to get rid of this nasty stuff.  
The mist suddenly shot out a nebulous arm toward the unsuspecting Digimon. The Unimon reared up in surprise and alarm, just as the mist plunged into its chest. The scene froze, a marker of the beginning of torment and fear.  
Then the arm was absorbed into the Digimon, who fell to its knees as though its legs had buckled. Shaking and shivering as though fighting something internally, it quaked there in the long grass...and then, gradually, stilled.  
Lurching to its feet, it lifted its head. Its eyes, once clear and blue, were clouded with roiling darkness. Giving a low growl, it shambled off into the forest.  
The mist continued to spread. Mindless, heartless, it would not be stopped. Spawned by a chance meeting of evil old and new, programmed to destroy and twist everything in its path, it had been set loose by random fate, and was destined to shake the worlds to their foundations...  
But it would have to go through the worlds' guardians first.  



	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1  
"Tai, get over here! You have got to see this!"  
Taichi Kamiya, leader of the Digidestined, would have been happy under any other circumstances to hear the voice calling him from a few trees away. These particular circumstances, however, were not his cup of tea. He quickly closed the pocketknife in his hands, a fifteenth birthday present from his granddad that he rarely used, and stowed it in his pocket.  
"Tai? Where are you?" Footsteps sounded on the crunching groundcover of dead leaves.  
"Oh, great," he muttered, thinking fast. The footsteps were coming closer. Beginning to panic, Tai glanced back at the lines etched in the tree's bark. "She can't see this!" Inspiration dawned just in time; he struck a 'casual' pose, his arm leaning against the tree and covering his handiwork.  
Only *just* in time; at that moment, his best friend Sora Takenouchi appeared from behind a bush.  
"What have you been up to?" she said sternly, her by-now keen eyes immediately catching the "I-did-something-I-shouldn't-have" that his posture was broadcasting as clearly as if it was written on the hapless boy's forehead. Knowing someone for all of one's remembered life, she reflected, teaches you a lot about their body language.  
Tai gulped. "Um, nothing...you wanted to show me something?"  
"Yes," Sora said guardedly, now scanning the area for damage. Nothing seemed out of place... Then she spotted the weird position of his arm. He was covering something! She grinned, and walked to a clear viewing distance. "Why don't we go look at it right now?"  
"Um..." Tai said, treed like a tree toad in a tree. How to get out of this? Not a good situation, not a good situation at all...  
"Well?" Sora said, calmly waiting for him to step away from the tree.  
"Uhm...why don't you go first, and...um...look for...stuff? While I catch up?"  
"Nothing doing, Taichi Kamiya," Sora said, crossing her arms. No point in being roundabout. "What's on the tree?"  
"Uh...bark?"  
A true Taiism. Sora gave him a Look, and reached for his arm...  
"Sora? Are you coming, or what? We need your help!"  
Saved by the sister. Tai let out a sigh of relief. Giving him a glare that said "We'll-finish-this-later", Sora stalked off into the brush in the direction of Kari's voice.  
"Coming?" she said dryly. He shrugged and followed her.  
Behind him, out of Sora's sight, the bark of the tree was left exposed, the newly carved lines pale orange-pink against the dark brown of the untouched bark.  
The characters for 'Taichi' and 'Sora' stood immortalized in the tree bark, nestled in an unfinished heart. The sentiment was sincere, but the suddenly terminated lines of the frame bore an eerily prophetic resemblance...to a broken heart.  
  
Hurrying into sight, Tai and Sora crashed through the brush, back to the place where Kari was kneeling with Izzy nearby. The younger girl looked up as they made their entrance, looking genuinely confused.  
"Tai! What took you so long? Wait until you see this..."  
"Come give this a once-over and tell me what you think of it, Tai," Izzy said seriously from his perch on a log. Puzzled, Tai joined Kari at this mysterious site and leaned over to look.  
A shallow trench had been carved in the ground, oddly square at the edges, with a smooth, flat, slightly tilted bottom and sides of hard-packed brown earth. The top of it was bridged by a slightly collapsed web of grass roots and grass, as though...  
"It's like something was sitting here for a long time, and then just...vanished," Tai said softly, surprise edging his voice. "How-"  
"We don't know," Izzy answered, interrupting the question. "But there's something definitely wrong with this area, just like that scan said."  
Remembering the strange anomaly that had been picked up by their Digivices that morning, Tai frowned. "You think it was caused by...whatever that thing was?"  
"I'm making an educated guess that it probably was. And this trench isn't the only one. Look around."  
Tai obliged. The vicinity of the trench was crisscrossed with more trenches, all about the same shape and size.  
"I don't get it..." he said, confused.  
"Tai!"  
Tai's head came up as Sora's cry floated from just out of sight behind a stand of trees. He hadn't realized that she'd wandered off. A loud crash reached his ears.  
"Tai, help!" Her voice had risen to a scream. He leapt to his feet and followed the sound of her voice, with Izzy and Kari at his heels...  
  
Bursting through the trees, he spotted her backed against a forest giant of a tree several feet away, fear running rampant in her eyes. An enormous yellow shape was between them, coming menacingly closer to her as she tried to edge away.  
A Tortomon.  
"Sora!" he yelled. Another inspiration hit him. "Hey, you big ugly pile of rocks! Over here!" The Tortomon and Sora both froze, and turned to look at him. Something was wrong with the Digimon's eyes...they looked clouded, and dark. Before he could reflect much more on this, it began to lumber toward him at an elephantine gallop that shook the ground and ate up the distance in seconds. He had just enough time to realize that it was going to crush him like a Tai-kebob against the branches of the trees he'd just come through, and that he didn't have enough reaction time to escape...  
Suddenly, mere inches from him, the body of the Digimon jerked, convulsing strangely. It let out a bellow, its hot breath washing against Tai's face, and collapsed, twitching spasmodically. Lifting its head, it roared once more at Tai, and he realized with a shiver that its eyes were insane. Then it crumpled into a rocky yellow heap, and reformatted in a wash of white light.  
For a frozen moment, Tai stared at the place where it had been. A shudder ran down his spine, and he sat down hard in the grass.  
"Tai!"  
With the power to move restored to her now that the danger had passed, Sora sprinted across the little clearing and fell to her knees next to him.  
"Tai, are you okay? Say something!" She shook him, and he blinked and let out a little strangled sound, still in shock.  
"That...thing...was going to kill you," he whispered.  
"It almost killed *you*!" Sora said, her face still pale. "I was just walking through here, and it came bashing out of the trees...I tripped, I couldn't get away...it was crazy! Tai, it wanted me dead!" She paused, and met his eyes.  
"What you just did was the bravest thing anybody has ever done for me, Taichi Kamiya," she said, beginning to cry. Slowly thawing from his fear, Tai awkwardly gave her a hug.  
"Shh," he said, trying to be reassuring. "I couldn't let it get you. If you died, where would I find someone to confuse me? You're so good at it, you know."  
Sora laughed weakly. "Yeah, that's my job right there. Best friends forever, huh?"  
Tai nodded. "Best friends forever."  
Smiling, Sora sniffled, choked back a few tears, and swallowed hard, pulling away with a recovering smile just as Izzy and Kari came crashing through the trees behind them.  
"What happened?" Izzy demanded, looking around at the crushed bushes and deep ruts in the earth that the Tortomon had carved in its headlong rush at Tai. The trail of destruction curved away between the trees into the distance, and a sharp turn in it marked where the Tortomon had veered off from its path to attack Sora.  
Kari rushed over to her brother, looking terrified for him.  
"Tai!" she cried. He looked up, suddenly very tired.  
"Hi, Kari. I'm fine, don't mind me..." He blinked and swayed slightly, wincing as a bruise on his leg made its presence known. "It's been a...strange day," he sighed.  
"Whatever happened, it's over now," Izzy proclaimed, "and you both look tired. You got a bad scare, didn't you?"  
"You could say that," Sora said wryly, rubbing at her arm where she'd landed in her fall.  
"What you both need is a place to lie down," Kari said with a sigh. "I'd be tired too. Let's go home."  
"Hold on!" Izzy said, looking alarmed. "I left my laptop back there!"  
"We can come back for it," Kari said sensibly.  
"But...what if it rains?" Izzy protested, the tone of his voice stating that this would be a disaster on a par with the Titanic, or perhaps even the Apocalypse.  
"Oh, all right, go get it...but hurry back!" Kari said, helping the dizzy two to their feet. "I'm heading for the Digiport with Tai and Sora. The others can find their way home on their own."  
"Right," Izzy said, and sped off in the direction of the mysterious trenches.  
Shrugging, the other three started for the nearest Digiport.  
Unknown to them, a creeping fog stirred in the shadows around them as they passed, and began to drift after them...  



	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
Izzy's laptop lay abandoned near one of the trenches. The silence of the forest was unbroken, yet a shadow seemed to fall over it. Strangely, there was nothing to cast it... It floated around the small machine, investigating it. A tendril discovered the modem linkup, and it reached toward it, sending questing fingers of fog into the circuitry of the computer...  
"Where *is* it?"  
The frustrated teenage voice was the deciding factor, as the laptop's owner came closer. With a soft humming sound of electronic transfer, the mist dove into the computer. The little Pineapple sparked, shook, and then gradually fell back into its usual rhythms.  
A moment later, Izzy came crashing through the brush and spotted his beloved laptop.  
"There you are!" Hurrying forward and scooping it up, he darted off without a backward glance, on his way to the Digiport.  
And in his wake, the remains of the mist stirred themselves...and wafted away to find new spires to devour and renew their power...  
  
A mile or so away, a stone skipped once, twice, three times across the surface of a tranquil lake, then sank with a plop. Disappointed, TK Takaishi frowned at his throwing hand, and reached down to choose another pebble. Finding a good one, he tossed it into the air once, caught it, and threw-  
"Hey, TS, whatcha doing?"  
Startled, TK let his hand wobble, and the stone plopped into the water without a single skip. Whirling around angrily, he glared at the intruder.  
"Davis, what are you doing here?"  
The purple-haired gogglehead shrugged. "I got bored. Cody's off on one of his rants again. I don't get what he's talking about, so I came to talk to you."  
"I don't feel like talking," TK said quietly, but with tightly leashed anger behind the words. "Go away."  
"Why?" Davis said flippantly, sitting down on a piece of driftwood with a sigh of relief. "Man, I needed to sit down. So, what's up?"  
"The sun is up," TK said, his voice grating with impatience as he bent over to look for rocks again, refusing to look at Davis. "The clouds are up. The treetops are up. I wish you would *shut* up."  
"Hey, that's pretty funny, TI!" Davis chortled, completely missing the point. Groaning, TK continued to search for rocks. However, Davis did not shut up. "I bet I can think of some, too! The mountains are up, outer space is up, the...um...the...the birds are up... Wait a minute, are there birds in the Digital world?"  
"Davis, please go away," TK said firmly.  
"Well, there's bird Digimon, so I guess those would count..." Davis continued, ignoring TK. "We sang a song with birds in it for Christmas, in my class. It was pretty cool." Still oblivious to TK's rising temper, Davis broke into song. "On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree! On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree!"  
"Davis..." TK gritted.  
"I wonder why anyone would want a partridge in a pear tree?" Davis mused, pausing in his song for a moment. "I mean, what would you do with one? Well, if it was from Kari, I suppose anyone would want one. What is a partridge, anyway?"  
"Davis!"  
"Oh, well, I'll look it up later. Anyway..." He began to sing again. "On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, three French hens, two turtledoves-"  
TK picked up a large rock and stomped over to Davis, brandishing it under the startled goggle-head's nose. "Davis, if you don't shut up and go away, I am going to hit you with this rock," he ground out from between clenched teeth.  
Davis' eyes got very large as he stared down at the rock and back up at TK's angry blue eyes. "But-"  
"I don't want to hear it! I don't want to listen to one more word out of your asinine mouth! Now BUG OFF!" TK yelled, shoving Davis-rock and all-with a vicious strength. Davis stumbled backward, looking shaken and frightened at this sudden show of anger, and nearly fell over the driftwood as he fled the beach.  
TK stood looking after him for a long time, finally letting his gaze drop to his hands, still holding the rock. It was half the size of his head. His hands trembled, and he let the rock fall from them, making a sizable crater in the sand.  
"What am I doing?" he whispered, appalled and sickened at what he had threatened to do. "What is wrong with me? I'm not like that...am I?" He shuddered, doubt creeping down his backbone like fingernails down a chalkboard. "I can't be!" he blurted, and sat down dejectedly on the log that Davis had vacated in his terrified bid for freedom... "I've spent so much time fighting monsters," he murmured softy, his eyes dark with fear. "What if...what if I'm becoming one?"  
In the shadows nearby, something stirred. If it had had a mind, it would have been pleased at the amplifying effect it was having on the faults of the nearby humans, and the self-doubt and fear it was sowing in their hearts.  
However, it was mindless on its own, and felt nothing...except an inexorable hunger.  
  
"Have you reached them yet?" Yolei called anxiously over her shoulder as she pushed through a patch of thick underbrush. Looking up from his D-Terminal, Ken shook his head.  
"No luck. I can't figure out what's even causing this jamming, let alone how to fix it. It's the most bizarre electrical signal I've ever seen; I've never seen anything remotely like this before..."  
"Well, whatever it is, it's been cutting us off from the others for nearly half an hour, and I don't like it one bit," Yolei muttered. They had started tramping through the underbrush of the forest about fifteen minutes after their D-Terminals had gone on the fritz. Any attempt to contact the outside world or the other Digidestined was erased mid-send in a flash of black across the screen. Ken's description of 'bizarre' pretty much summed it up. He was falling farther and farther behind Yolei as he became more involved in trying to counteract the virus-like program failure.  
"I don't like it either, but I don't know what we can do about it that we aren't doing now," Ken said resignedly. "We're heading back to the others and continuing to try to communicate with them, and that's all we can do right now."  
"I guess," Yolei doubtfully murmured. "But still-"  
A crash and a yell from behind her nearly scared her out of her skin.  
"Ken!" she shrieked, turning to see him sprawled facedown across the ground. "Ken, are you okay? What happened?" she cried, dropping to her knees next to him. He lifted his head, gave it a dizzy shake and looked up at her, his blue eyes rueful but without the agony she had been afraid she'd see.  
"I'm okay," he said, levering himself up onto his elbows. "I just took a bad step. It's funny," he said thoughtfully, "but it felt almost like the ground dissolved from under me... No, I must just be getting clumsy."  
Yolei smiled, glad that he was all right. "I wouldn't say 'clumsy'. This forest is full of stuff to trip on. You just had bad luck. Here, I'll give you a hand," she said, standing up.  
Ken took her hand and started to get up, but winced and sat down hard, letting go. "Oh, that's not good," he muttered, twisting around so that he could pull up his pants leg and look at his ankle. It was bruised-looking and beginning to swell up. "Ow..." he said softly, wincing. "I don't think it's sprained or I would have felt it before now...but it definitely doesn't feel good to stand on it."  
"Maybe you pulled a muscle," Yolei said, worry welling up in her throat. "Just what we need," she muttered angrily. Ken looked guilty, and she immediately felt even worse. "I'm not blaming you, Ken," she said quickly, looking at the ground. "I just...well, now we're stuck out here, and it'll be dark in a few hours..."  
She shivered, and Ken felt a unexpected and surprisingly strong wish to protect her, to make her feel safe. *Not much chance of that,* he thought wryly, glancing at his ankle. *There's got to be something I can do...*  
"Hey, why don't you go on ahead a ways?" he suggested suddenly. Yolei looked surprised, and nervous.  
"Are you sure?" she said, twisting her hands in the hem of her jacket. "I don't like to leave you alone out here..."  
"Positive," Ken said firmly, giving her a courageous smile. "You can find the others and bring them back here. If you don't find them and it starts getting dark, come on back. I'll keep trying to get a message through."  
"I suppose..." Yolei said, and reluctantly jogged off through the trees, shooting glances over her shoulder as she disappeared. Ken looked after her, feeling a bit forlorn. Finally, when she was well out of sight, he sighed and settled himself with the D-Terminal in his lap, and began to try to edge a message around the growing virus.  
  
Out in the forest, the shadows had begun to lengthen, and Yolei looked uneasily around herself as rustles and whispers of sound slipped through the early evening air. A cracking sound behind her made her whirl, her heart beating frantically. Nothing appeared, but her feelings of fear and dread did not go away.  
She was beginning to have misgivings about this whole idea. With Ken there, the forest was just inconvenient, but alone...it was downright scary, especially now, as it began to get dark. Shivering, she turned and hurried onward, breaking a trail of branches as she went to ensure her ability to find Ken again.  
A soft, faintly hissing sound behind her made her pause and listen carefully. The sound stopped as her footsteps did. She frowned and kept going, and the sound started up again. Little stabs of panic began to sting her stomach, which squeezed into a tight knot.  
She stopped again, and this time heard the sound continue, a sinuous, whispering hiss. It was coming closer...  
"Ken?" Yolei squeaked, scanning the shadows. "Tai? Sora? Izzy? Davis?" No answer; just that eerie whisper-hiss. "Davis Motomiya is a big fat loser!" she yelled in a sing-song voice. No reaction. "Davis, this isn't funny!" she cried angrily. Still nothing. Hugging herself, she backed away from the sound, but it was spreading, surrounding her.  
Was it just her, or were the shadows moving? She frowned and looked more closely...and at that moment, the first edges of the heavy black mist slithered into view, closing in a tight circle around their victim.  
A terrified scream rang through the forest, and then there was no sound at all...  



	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
"Well? Can you reach them?" Izzy said anxiously into the computer mike. Cody's voice, made choppy by digitalization over the 'Net, was just as worried.  
"We still can't get a clear signal," he said, hesitant. "We've tried sending them a message...but they didn't respond...I...think they might be...trouble.....need........help..." The *kkkzzkkcckk* of static had begun to sibilate between his words, breaking up the signal. Izzy hit a few keys, trying to clear the transmission, but it didn't help.  
"Cody, what's going on? We're losing you!" he exclaimed into the microphone.  
The reply was garbled. ".......can't get........signal...........virus.........." The sound dissolved into static, leaving Izzy staring, stunned, at his screen.  
"Okay, that cuts it," he said, turning his chair to address Tai, Sora, and Kari, who were sitting on the bed in Izzy's room and looking anxiously at him. "This is officially weird."  
"First Ken and Yolei, now Cody, Davis, and TK," Tai said reflectively. "If I didn't know better, I'd think our team communications were being systematically knocked out."  
"Well, you may not know better, but I do," Izzy said firmly. "I took a few readings of the area around where that Digimon disappeared, and of the trenches before you arrived. They both correlate, and so do the readouts I'm getting from the D-Terminal signal wavelengths. Something very bad is loose in the Digital world, and it's somehow gotten onto the Internet and is messing with the D-Terminal transmissions. Whatever it is, though, it's not sentient...just very, very hungry."  
"For data?" Tai said, remembering their last similar problem.  
"No, Tai," Izzy said. "For...something else. I'm not sure what. It's more destructive than the last one, too. It's not eating, it's just bashing things up. So far it's only messing with our apparatus, but who knows when it'll move on to public domain."  
"And all this means...?" Sora said inquiringly. Izzy sighed.  
"Folks, we have another virus outbreak on our hands."  
"Great, so we just squash it and go along our merry way!" Tai said cheerfully, clapping his hands together.  
"It's not that easy, Tai," Izzy said knowledgably.  
"I was afraid you were gonna say that," Tai groaned.  
"We can't just take out the leader here," Izzy stated. "This virus is spread out, without a definite figurehead like the last one. Furthermore, it's spreading unchecked through our systems. At the rate it's going, we've got less than an hour before it reaches public files, maybe as little as half an hour. More time than most viruses would give us, but still not a lot."  
"Well, what do we do to get rid of it?" Sora demanded, beginning to really worry. "We're not just going to let this digital kudzu take over the 'Net, are we?"  
"Not if I can help it," Izzy said firmly. "But, Sora, it's not just the Internet at stake."  
"Then what-" Kari began, but Izzy cut her off.  
"You all saw what that virus did to the Tortomon that attacked Sora."  
"Yeah, it made it nuts," Tai said uneasily. "I got *too* good of a look at that thing, and it was completely out of its gourd. It couldn't even talk...not that Tortomon are very smart in the first place, but you know what I mean."  
"That's right, Tai," Izzy said, with a sigh. "In fact, according to my readouts, it brought out all of its negative impulses and magnified them several times over. The backlash from all of this was eventual insanity...and the strain of the virus running through its system eventually destroyed the Digimon host."  
"Ohh..." Kari breathed, her eyes going wide.  
"So this thing could be a mass killer if it got loose in the real world!" Tai said, stunned.  
"Exactly. And that could happen at any time. But that's not what I'm afraid of right now," Izzy said darkly. "We've got more immediate danger to worry about."  
Sora's hands flew to her mouth. "The others in the Digital world!"  
"TK!" Kari cried, looking terrified. "And Yolei!" She shuddered. "I hope they can hold on until we get a line through..."  
  
A sound behind Ken startled him into turning to look, nearly dropping his D-Terminal. The familiar shape standing by a tree reassured him, and he relaxed.  
"Oh, hi, Yolei. Didn't you find the others?"  
She didn't answer, but kept her eyes on the ground. Ken frowned.  
"Yolei? Are you okay?" Still no answer. "It's okay if you didn't find them," he said gently, mistaking her silence for embarrassment. "We'll get out of here."  
"Or maybe we won't," Yolei said softly, her voice menacing.  
"What?" Ken said, shocked-and Yolei raised her head. A dark cloudiness had filled her beautiful eyes, making them alien and frightening.  
"You're going nowhere, Ken," she purred, her face expressionless. Ken swallowed, not sure what was going on here, but feeling a strong impulse to run...  
"Um, Yolei? What the heck is wrong with you?" he said, edging away from her.  
"All those Digimon you killed," she hissed, her voice slurred and strange in her throat. It had a metallic edge to it, as though it were computer-generated and not her own voice at all. "All those deaths on your hands. Revenge isn't civilized, but it can feel so good..." She grinned, wolfishly: a cruel expression that wasn't hers. "Say goodbye, Ken."  
With that warning, she lunged for him, her hands going for his throat. Rolling to the side, Ken tried to leap to his feet and cried out in pain as his ankle buckled beneath him. He fell, rolling over and over until he was stopped by Yolei, who grabbed his arm and yanked him back. He stumbled to his feet, putting his weight on his uninjured ankle.  
She struck at his face, and he ducked and grabbed her wrist. Struggling and growling in a voice that was no longer even remotely human, she tried to wrench away, but he held fast.  
"Yolei, stop it! Listen to me! Whatever is going on inside you, it's not you! Fight it!" he yelled at her. She paused for a moment, staring into his eyes, and he saw the fog in her own eyes roiling, as if a second battle were being fought inside of her...  
She abruptly broke their locked gazes, and without warning brought her free fist up and into the back of his head with a force that made his ears ring and stars dance in front of his vision. If he'd had any doubts about Yolei's part in all of this, they were gone; Yolei on her own had nowhere near that strength. He collapsed, taking her down with him. The world swam for a minute, and when it steadied he was fighting off her hands, still clutching for his throat as she pinned him down. Shoving her sideways, he tried to get out of her grasp, but she wouldn't let go. They rolled across the forest floor, battling for Ken's life and Yolei's soul...  
  
TK gazed out across the lake, silent in his own thoughts. At least an hour had passed since he'd shouted at Davis, and he still hadn't come to terms with himself. As he sat there, mired in his own guilt, he didn't even notice the faint whispering sound behind him...  
  
Davis glared at his D-Terminal, giving it a whack.  
"Stupid, useless thing!" he yelled at it, losing his temper.  
"I don't think that's going to help, Davis," Cody said matter-of-factly, trying to adjust the tuning knobs on his own. Armadillomon looked over his shoulder, just as confused. "I wonder what's going on with the rest of them..."  
Suddenly, TK came striding through the trees, purpose in his step.  
"TK!" Patamon exclaimed joyfully, winging up to greet him.  
Davis looked up, surprised. "Hey, TQ, where do you think you're going in such a hurry?" He got up to stop him, moving into his path.  
TK pushed him aside like a toy mannequin, sending him stumbling off balance.  
"Hey! Cut that out, TR! I'm sick of your being a jerk to me! What's with you today?" He scrambled after the retreating back of TK, and grabbed his shoulder...  
TK whirled, his fist lashing out viciously. Davis sat down hard, bleeding freely from his nose.  
"TK, what are you-aah!" Patamon cried, as TK swung at him, knocking him out of the air. Cody, running up and grabbing TK's arm, was thrown aside like a rag doll. Without further ado, TK turned and headed into the forest again, leaving his friends stunned and hurt behind him.  
"TK..." Patamon whimpered, bewildered and frightened as he nursed a painful leg.  
"What does he think he's doing?" Cody spluttered, trying to catch his breath, which had been painfully knocked out of him in his fall. Davis wiped blood from his face, breathing hard.  
"Don't ask me, but I think he's finally snapped! Back at the lake, I tried to talk to him, and he tried to thunk me with a rock! It was freaky..."  
Cody winced. "I remember I used to be afraid that he was becoming a little scary, but this is completely out of line! We'd better get to the Digiport, and fast!"  
"The Digiport!" Davis exclaimed suddenly, fear knotting in his stomach. "That's the direction he was heading! I'll bet you anything that that creep is after Kari!"  



	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
"Yolei, don't give up!" Ken shouted as they fought. Yolei hissed like an animal, kicking and flailing at him with all four limbs. Her hand caught his cheek, skittering across it, and her fingernails drew blood. He winced, sucking in his breath suddenly, and she used the distraction to slam her fist into his head. He kicked out, pushing her off of him, and stumbled to his feet; his ankle screamed with pain, but he ignored it.  
Yolei stood dizzily across from him, breathing heavily. Ken felt the ground roll under his feet as he tried to stay standing.  
"You can beat this, Yolei," Ken pleaded, trying to catch her gaze again. "I don't want to fight you!" He had to do something, something to help her, but he couldn't think with the waves of pain shooting up his leg like cold fire. "Don't let this thing control you like this! You're strong, remember? I don't want to hurt you!"  
Yolei snarled and leapt forward, smashing him against the trunk of a nearby tree; his head jerked back and hit the tree, and he reeled for a moment. Something inside him snapped, and he shoved her backward, nearly knocking her over.  
"Stop it!" he yelled, whether to Yolei or to the force controlling her he didn't know, and spun her around, shoving her again and pinning her against the tree with both hands. It was Yolei's turn to crack her head painfully on the bark of the tree. Stunned, she stared up at him, and a flicker or the real Yolei slipped through to him in her frightened eyes. Shaking with helplessness and anger and fear for them both as he looked back, Ken suddenly felt revelation shoot through his mind.  
The Crest of Love.  
The purifying power of the crests.  
The only way to save her.  
Before he could think twice and begin to doubt, Ken leaned forward and kissed her.  
She struggled in his arms for a muddled, confused moment...and then suddenly relaxed. From the edges of his vision, Ken saw a black haze diffuse from her, dissolving in a starburst of dying evil. Relief filled him, and he silently cheered. Then he was distracted by her arms, coming up to circle his neck.  
"Thank you," she murmured against his mouth, and kissed back. He was surprised to feel tears beginning to run down her face, and her body shaking with the release of fear.  
*Well, call me a DemiDevimon if I'm not going to try and comfort her,* Ken thought a bit dizzily, and proceeded to do just that.  
  
"It's getting worse, isn't it?" Kari stated unhappily, looking over Izzy's shoulder. The young techie sighed.  
"I'm afraid so. I can't think of what to do..."  
"The Internet!" Tai yelled suddenly, standing up. "Izzy, get Matt on the phone!"  
Izzy didn't ask questions, even though he had no idea what Tai was talking about. A second later, Tai was waiting impatiently for Matt to pick up the telephone.  
"Hello, Ishida residence."  
"Hi, Mr. Ishida," Tai said. "Is Matt there?"  
"I'm sorry, he's out at a band rehearsal. Can I take a-"  
"Thanks, Mr. Ishida!" Tai interrupted, hanging up the phone. Picking it up again, he quickly dialed the number for the backstage section of the city concert hall, where the Young Wolves tended to practice. "C'mon, be there, be there..." he whispered, crossing the fingers on his free hand.  
"Hello?"  
Music sounded in the background. It was the Young Wolves, all right.  
"Hi, this is Tai Kamiya. Is Matt there?"  
"You mean Yamato?" the unfamiliar female voice said. "Sure, I'll get him right on." He heard the receiver being covered by her hand as she shouted something. Then the music stopped and Matt's voice came in over the line.  
"Hi, Tai. Could you call back later? I'm a little busy-"  
"Matt, there's another virus loose on the 'Net, and it's in the Digital World, too."  
A pause, and then... "Where are you? I'll be right over."  
"Izzy's house, and step on it, dude! This thing's growing fast!"  
"Right!" They hung up, and Tai sat back down on the bed with a sigh.  
"I hope this works..."  
  
Slamming out of the concert hall and pulling on his jacket at the same time, Matt skidded down the front steps...and ran smack into someone coming the other direction. Shopping bags flew in all directions.  
"Ow! Hey!"  
"Sorry, Miss, I didn't mean to..." Matt said hurriedly, and then trailed off as he recognized the girl's face. "Mimi? What are you doing here?"  
"What are you doing here?" she challenged in return, putting her hands on her hips.  
"My band practices here," Matt said bluntly. "And I'm kind of in a hurry to get to Izzy's house, so if you don't mind..."  
"Yes, I mind! I come all the way to America for an audition, which for your information is tomorrow, and when I come to scope out the place's acoustics, I get barreled into by Wolf Man the Near-Sighted!"  
Matt glanced down at the packages littering the sidewalk. "An audition? With who?"  
"An agent, that's who. She heard my voice on a tape I did with a few friends last year and wanted to hear me in person."  
Matt whistled. "Sweet...so, what's with all the stuff?"  
Mimi blushed. "I did a little shopping on the way..."  
"A 'little' shopping?" Matt said incredulously. "Oh, whatever. Here, you'd better come with me. I'll help you get your stuff picked up."  
"I can do it myse-ow!" Mimi yelped as they leaned over at the same time and cracked heads. "Careful!"  
"Sorry..."  
"So, why exactly do I need to go with you anywhere, let alone Izzy's house?" Mimi said skeptically as they gathered up the bags and boxes.  
"There's another virus on the loose."  
"You're kidding..." Mimi said, her eyes going wide. "I missed the last one, but Tai said it was pretty bad..."  
"Pretty bad doesn't cover it," Matt said frankly. "We're going to need all the help we can get, which is the only reason, and I do mean *only* reason, that I'm recruiting you."  
"Oh, thanks a lot," Mimi said huffily, snatching a bag out of his hands.  
"Hey, I just meant that you're not much of a fighter," Matt said defensively, taking it back. "Let me get that. We can both carry some of this stuff. We'll never get there if you insist on holding it all."  
Mimi scowled, but let him take a share of the shopping bags. They hurried off down the street towards the Izumi apartment.  
  
As Matt and Mimi burst through the door of Izzy's room, they were greeted by a frantic Tai.  
"What took you so long?" he asked Matt, glaring at him. "Oh, hi, Mimi," he added in a distracted tone. "I didn't know you were in the country."  
"I had an appointment," Mimi said vaguely, not wanting to give the sometimes-tactless boy any ammunition in case the audition didn't work out.  
"Whatever," he said absently, leading them into the room. "Hey, Sora, Mimi showed up."  
"Oh, all right!" Sora yelped, leaping to her feet to give her friend a hug. "It's good to see you again!"  
"It's good to be here. Do you have a place where I can put this stuff?"  
Sora had just enough time to goggle at the mass of shopping bags before they were all interrupted by a surprised shout from Izzy.  
"Oh, no!"  
"What? What is it?" Tai demanded, whirling around. "What happened?"  
Izzy was staring openly at the monitor. "I have good news, bad news, and really bad news," he said weakly.  
"Um, what's the good news?" Sora said carefully.  
"The virus left our apparatus. We can communicate again."  
"Great!" Tai said jubilantly. "And the bad news?"  
"It left our stuff because it all migrated into the public domain," Izzy said with a groan.  
"What?!" Tai exclaimed. "But...you said it would take half an hour! It's barely been fifteen minutes!"  
"This virus is displaying a growth pattern unlike anything I've ever seen," Izzy explained. "It's gathering velocity at alarming rates as it spreads! It's almost as though it were receiving an energy feed from somewhere!"  
"Huh?" Tai, Sora, Matt, and Mimi chorused.  
"It's growing faster and faster the more space it covers, like some outside force was pumping it with extra energy," Kari translated.  
"Oh, wonderful," Mimi said darkly. "What about the really bad news?"  
Izzy turned his chair to face them, worry in his eyes.  
"When I noticed the migration beginning, I did a quick scan of major areas of Tokyo. There's an anomaly on a street near the concert hall that resembles a black mist of some sort. It could be a manifestation of this virus."  
"So, what do we do about it?" Matt asked.  
Tai stood up from where he'd taken a seat on the bed. "I have an idea."  
A chorus of groans came from his friends.  
"Hey, it's a good idea!" Tai insisted, glaring around the room. "Remember that time when we got translated into Internet data, Matt?"  
"How could I forget?" Matt shot back. "Why?"  
Tai turned to Izzy. "Izzy, you were there. You probably have all sorts of readings on what happened. Can you do it again?"  
"I suppose I could replicate the effect," Izzy said slowly. "But why..."  
"Where are our Digimon?" Tai asked him.  
"Patamon is acting as guide to TK, Davis and Cody. Otherwise, they're having a well-deserved day off."  
"I hate to mess with their vacation time, but we're going to need them," Tai said. "Can you contact Jennai and have him send them to us?"  
"Better yet, he can translate Agumon and Gabumon right onto the 'Net," Matt said, stepping forward. "We'll meet them there."  
"So you're in?" Tai asked, just to make sure.  
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Matt assured him with a cocky grin. "I've been in retirement way too long."  
"Great! We can attack the virus on its own level-the Internet!" Tai exclaimed. "Uh, Izzy, it is vulnerable to our Digimon attacks...isn't it?"  
"It should be, according to my readings," Izzy said dubiously.  
"Perfect. We'll blow it out of the digital water!"  
"It's not great, but it's the best plan I've heard so far," Izzy admitted. "Okay, we'll do it, but you two should have at least one more person along as backup. We could call Joe-"  
"I'll do it."  
They all turned to stare at the speaker.  
"Mimi?" Kari said, stunned. "Have you gone nuts?"  
"Are you aware that of all the places we need to send Digidestined, the Internet is the most dangerous?" Izzy said carefully. Mimi nodded, a surprisingly fierce look in her eyes.  
"I know. I want to prove that I *can* fight when I put my mind to it!"  
Matt gulped. "Mimi, what I said back there...I'm sorry about it, but when I'm in a hurry I just tend to spit out whatever I'm thinking without stopping to, well, think-"  
"Exactly," Mimi agreed. "So, aside from your manners or lack thereof, that proves that you really do think that I'm a sissy. I'm coming along, Matt. Don't try and stop me."  
Matt shrugged. "Okay, I guess...but don't say we didn't warn you."  
"I'll be fine," Mimi said confidently. "Now let's get going."  
Izzy held up his hands. "Whoa, whoa, slow down, Xena. I have to get a program up and running that'll do the translation first."  
"Xena?!" Mimi snapped, putting her hands on her hips. Fortunately for Izzy, at that moment a chime sounded from the computer, and everyone came over to look, effectively shielding him from Mimi's wrath.  
"You've got an incoming message," Tai said, pointing out the obvious. Izzy nodded, and clicked his mouse over the Accept button. A second later, a window containing Yolei and Ken's worried faces appeared on the screen.  
"Izzy!" Ken exclaimed. "I'm glad the D-Terminal *finally* decided to work..."  
"What have you guys been doing?" Sora asked with a frown, noticing their collection of bruises and scrapes. "It looks like you got beaten up!"  
"You could say that," Ken said.  
"We'll tell you later," Yolei said at the same time, blushing.  
Ken glanced at her. "We'll tell you *never*," he muttered, blushing a little himself.  
Mimi giggled; no one else seemed to pick up on the 'hint', to Ken and Yolei's mutual relief.  
"Anyway, we've got some serious problems over here!" Ken barreled on, changing the subject. "There's some sort of killer mist on the loose; Yolei told me all about it, and it has some nasty effects!"  
"You're telling me? It's a virus, Ken. It's been attacking our equipment signals and ruining our communication. If we don't stop it soon, it's going to spread all through the Internet-"  
"It's already spreading here!" Yolei blurted, looking haunted. "It's all over the place-we can barely go anywhere without running into another cloud of it!"  
"Oh, prodigious," Izzy muttered, putting a hand to his head. "Um...try to avoid it, and get back to the Digiport-"  
"Hold on!" Tai interrupted. "Don't avoid it, you guys. Use your D-Terminals to call your Digimon, and then track down the mist and destroy it! Your Digimon attacks should work against it."  
"Are you sure-"  
"Positive. If we don't get rid of this stuff soon, we'll never catch up with it."  
Ken looked carefully at Tai's serious expression. "Right. We'll do that, then. Yolei, is Hawkmon anywhere nearby?"  
"We'll find out in a minute," Yolei said, her eyes narrowing. "I've got a score to settle with that stuff."  
"Okay, so you guys can take care of the Digital World. We can send you backup once Davis, Cody and TK get back. Matt, Mimi, and I will take the Internet, and we'll send someone to have a look at that animal-whatsit-"  
"Anomaly," Izzy corrected, glancing up from some sort of window that he had begun typing frantically in.  
"Whatever... To look at that thing by the concert hall. Any volunteers?"  
"I will," Kari spoke up. As Tai began to protest, she glared at him. "I'm a big girl, Tai. I can take care of myself. Plus, I can take photos of it to bring back." She held up her digital camera.  
"Well...I guess so," Tai said reluctantly. "Just be careful."  
"I will," she assured him. He sighed, looking less than convinced.  
"Anyway, Sora, you should call Joe and get him over here. With his help, you and Izzy can hold down the fort and be backup just in case...oh, and send the others on to wherever they're needed when they get here, okay?"  
"Sure," Sora agreed.  
"Okay, we'll get on it, then," Ken said resolutely. "Not a moment to lose and all that good stuff, right?"  
"Exactly," Matt agreed.  
"Perfecto," Yolei said with more than a hint of irony in her tone, rolling her eyes. "I work best under pressure...Yolei out."  
The image vanished, just as Izzy raised his fists in triumph.  
"Prodigious! I've got it!"  
"Got what, a case of the sillies?" Kari said in amused confusion.  
"No! I've got a makeshift program cobbled together. It's not great, but it should be able to get the three of you there and back again. To be honest, I don't think I *could* make it carry a fourth person," he admitted sheepishly. "Not on this kind of notice. It's hard enough to format it for three when I'm hurrying like this."  
"The master programmer does it again!" Matt crowed, clapping the diminutive alpha-nerd on the back. "Don't worry about it, Izzy; it's good enough for me."  
"And the rest of us," Mimi agreed. "Enough standing around; let's go!"  
"Just let me program your Digivice signatures into the computer...you do have them with you, don't you?" Izzy asked.  
"Right here," Tai said, holding his up. Matt and Mimi did the same.  
"Prodigious," Izzy said distractedly, typing away at an incredible rate. "It'll just take a second...there!" He grinned. "Ready?"  
"Ready," they chorused.  
"Then why waste time? Good luck, you guys."  
He reached for the keyboard, bringing up a window to give them a view of the Internet and typing in the initiating string of numbers.  
"Tai!" Sora cried suddenly. "Be careful..."  
"I wi-"  
Izzy pressed Enter, and with a flash of light, the three Digidestined were pulled by their Digivices...right through the computer screen...and into the Internet.  



	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
"-ill," Tai finished lamely, and sighed. "Well, so much for that...whoa!" he exclaimed, staring around himself. Matt and Mimi were already doing that.  
The Internet was a strangely beautiful place, without all those ugly virus things running around like an infestation of digital cockroaches, the way they were the last time he'd been there. It was composed of waterfalls of 0s and 1s, strange spires of soft- and hardware, and whorls of data, with odd stuff that resembled carnival paraphernalia floating everywhere; carousels, Ferris wheels, and streamers of colorful information. Tai took a 'step' forward, felt a moment of startled dizziness as he tilted forward instead moving ahead, then looked down-and flinched, as he realized that he was standing on absolutely nothing.  
"Ack!"  
"Hey, neat!" Mimi exclaimed, pushing off of a nearby spire and turning herself upside down. Gravity didn't seem to apply in this world, which was a good thing; Mimi was wearing a skirt.  
"Man...let me try!" Matt said, and grabbed a nearby streamer, pulling himself along it like a climbing rope in gym class. "Sweet..." he said, and kicked off of a free-floating spiral of pink material. It flew one way as he flew the other, doing involuntary cartwheels. "Whooooooooooooooaaaaa-oof! $#*%!!!" he yelled, flying dizzily through space and impacting with Tai head-on. They bounced off each other in opposite directions, cursing and floundering.  
Mimi was doubled over with laughter, holding on to a carousel horse to keep from floating away. "You guys are so dumb!" she giggled, and kicked off, shooting gracefully through space as she turned in mid-'air' to land feet first on a nearby sheet of numbers, then pushing off again. She caught Matt by the arm, and the opposing momentum sent them into a pin-wheeling tailspin until Mimi stopped them neatly against another spire.  
"See? Piece of cake," she said cheerfully.  
Matt's eyes seemed to be having trouble focusing. "Cake...ri-ight," he moaned, trying to get the world to stop spinning.  
Tai, meanwhile, had managed to brake himself against a Ferris wheel.  
"Stop the 'Net, I wanna get off..." he moaned. "It was a heck of a lot easier when we had Omnimon to ride on."  
"Hey, Tai, you're upside down," Mimi called. Tai frowned, looking over at his friends. They appeared to be hanging heads-downward from a spire some distance away.  
"I am not!" he yelled back. "You are!"  
"We both are!" she giggled. It was then that Tai realized something he hadn't noticed before; there was no such thing as up or down in this screwed-up world. He felt a dizzying rush of nausea as vertigo made his head spin...  
"Tai! Tai, are you all right?"  
Tai blinked. "Agumon...?"  
The little Digimon's face came into focus, looking concernedly back at him.  
"Tai, speak to me!"  
"I-I'm fine," Tai said, rubbing his head. "I just need to...adjust..." He suddenly snapped out of his daze. "Agumon! When did you get here?"  
"Just now," the dinosaur Digimon chirped. "Palmon and Gabumon are over there. C'mon!" He shoved off, flying quickly through the air. Tai yelped.  
"Hey! Slow down! I'm not very good at this yet!"  
"He's not *any* good at it!" Mimi cheerfully supplied from where she perched on her spire, still mind-bogglingly 'upside-down'. Palmon was floating next to her.  
"Oh, shut up," Tai muttered. "I'm starting to wish we hadn't brought the little hot-shot..."  
"What happened, man?" Matt said, suddenly seeming to appear at Tai's shoulder. Tai jumped with surprise, then realized that his friend had flown over with Gabumon's help. "You kind of spaced out for a few minutes...the Digimon arrived while you were swaying like a drunk duck."  
"Sorry," Tai said, looking embarrassed. "I'll be all right now."  
"Good," Matt said, glancing down and suddenly becoming very serious, "because I think I see the Welcome Wagon approaching..."  
Tai followed his gaze...and spotted a viscous-looking black haze, bubbling up from the spires and carnival gear floating below his feet. Mimi gave a little cry of alarm and kicked off, speeding over to the boys with Palmon at her heels.  
"What now?" she said, looking worriedly at Tai as she stopped her trajectory against a pillar of data.  
Tai grinned; *now* he was in his element.  
"We fight," he said, and grabbed his Digivice. "Agumon, Digivolve!"  
The other two followed suit.  
"Agumon, Warp-Digivolve to...WarGreymon!"  
"Gabumon, Warp-Digivolve to...MetalGarurumon!"  
"Palmon, Digivolve to...Togemon!"  
Mimi sighed, shaking her head. "I *wish* I had a Mega level, too...it's so much more convenient."  
"Are you saying I'm inconvenient?" Togemon thundered, looking hurt.  
"Oh, no, not at all!" Mimi exclaimed. "It's just that it would be nice to be able to Warp-Digivolve, that's all..."  
"Can't argue with you there," Togemon agreed, and turned back to the approaching virus. "Still, gotta do my best. How about some NEEDLE SPRAY!"  
"TERRA FORCE!"  
"ICE WOLF CLAW!"  
The attacks burst in showers of colored light against the front line of the oncoming mist. Large sections of it dissolved, and the Digidestined cheered, pumping their fists in victory. Tai mistakenly let go of the spire he was holding to wave his arms and cheer in victory, and began to slowly drift away, flapping his limbs uselessly and only managing to turn himself 'upside-down' again.  
"Oh, pay attention," Mimi muttered with a roll of her eyes, reaching out to grab him by the foot and pull him back to the spire again.  
"Thanks," Tai said grudgingly, feeling a little stupid...but his good spirits quickly recovered, and he grinned. "We're kicking this thing's tail!"  
"It doesn't have a tail, Tai," WarGreymon pointed out.  
"Oh...right..."  
"And I somehow don't think that it's going to be that easy," MetalGarurumon mused.  
"He's right," Togemon agreed. "It never is."  
At that moment, a fresh wave of the mist shot toward them like a sudden tsunami.  
"Oh, no!" Mimi yelled, her eyes going huge as the black fog towered over them.  
"I hate it when we're right," Togemon and WarGreymon chorused.  
"ICE WOLF CLAW!"  
"NEEDLE SPRAY!"  
"TERRA FORCE! You kids had better run, and fast!" WarGreymon added as his attack exploded among the waves of virus, obliterating a large area...which was filled almost instantly with more of the stuff, coming from below.  
"Right," Tai agreed, and looked at the others. "We'd better link hands, so we don't get separated."  
"I call the middle," Matt said immediately. "I'm no good at this."  
"Neither am I!" Tai protested, but before he could say anything else, the other two had linked up and pushed off, and he was dragged along. "Hey! I'm supposed to be the leeeeeeeeaderrrrrr!" Tai shouted as he flew through the 'air', with Mimi mostly controlling their direction and Matt helping to push off with his legs.  
"Then stop whining and lead!" Mimi shouted back. Tai blinked.  
*She's right...I've done nothing but complain since we got here,* he thought, surprised at himself. *This was my idea...I'd better prove that it was worth having.* His face set in a determined look, and he grinned as a surge of courage made his crest blink with a split second of orange light.  
"Thanks; I think I will."  
With that, he got a better grip on Matt's arm, so that he was part of the machine and not just extra baggage. As the next obstacle in their passage, a Ferris wheel, loomed ahead of them, he watched the others and kicked off of it at the same time that they did. Shooting away at an even greater speed, they whizzed toward a solid wall of data.  
"Oh, great," Matt yelled. "We're gonna crash!"  
"What now, Boss Man?" Mimi shouted.  
Tai thought quickly...and it hit him. "We've got to turn backwards! Wave your legs, like this!" He imitated the fishtailing motions he'd made earlier as he'd drifted away from the spire. "We can stop ourselves against it and push off in the other direction!"  
Matt and Mimi didn't waste breath talking about it; they just nodded and began to kick wildly. Gradually, they rotated in mid-trajectory...  
"NOW!" Tai bellowed, and they bent their legs and landed with a painful slam against the surface...but not nearly so painful as it would have been, head-on. Their bent knees absorbed the shock; in about a tenth of a second, they had kicked out and were heading off at a right angle to the way they'd came, almost straight 'up' the side of the wall.  
"I think you're getting the hang of this," Matt admitted with a wince as he stretched his aching legs.  
"Don't thank me," Tai panted back. "We're not out of this yet."  
"What?" Mimi said, confused.  
"Look behind you," Tai said. Mimi obliged...and gasped.  
The Digimon were speeding toward them, firing shots off behind themselves as they flew...and close on their heels was the biggest mass of the virus they'd seen yet.  
"Izzy, how much of this stuff *is* there?!" Tai yelled at nothing. Nothing didn't reply, of course; Izzy couldn't hear him, any more than Tai could have heard an answer. Matt, however, already had one for him.  
"A lot," he wheezed. "A whole freaking lot. Tai, if we're gonna get out of this in one piece, we're going to have to think of something...fast."  
_____  
  
(Well, folks, there's seven more finished chapters to this thing...but if y'all want 'em, somebody has to tell me Aquilamon's attack! I've utterly forgotten it! Geesh, I'm more of an airhead than Mimi...well, I guess it's from all the stories frolicking about in my head. M_~* This one actually doesn't frolic so much as run madly from place to place, screaming, and doing short romantic scenes. Oh, well. Somebody please review and tell me the attack! -Bandit yori)  



	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6  
"So this is the cliff you meant?" Yolei said, glancing up at Hawkmon, who was hovering at her shoulder.  
"Most indubitably," Hawkmon replied. "I've heard all sorts of unpleasant rumors about this locale in the last few hours. The entire Digital World is buzzing with stories about strange disappearances, and even tales of..." The little Digimon flapped closer, as if sharing a deep, dark secret. "Insane Digimon, coming from this area to attack others with no provocation," he said softly in her ear, looking nervously about them.  
Yolei sighed. "I'm afraid that the rumors are probably true," she said unhappily. "Well, the best we can do is to destroy the virus and get rid of its influence once and for all. Ken?"  
"Ready," Ken said with a nod to her. "Wormon, how about you?"  
"I'm ready if you are, Ken," the diminutive insect Digimon agreed.  
"Great, then Digivolve!" the humans chorused, and held up their D3's.  
"Hawkmon, Digivolve to...Aquilamon!"  
"Wormon, Digivolve to...Stingmon!"  
"Perfecto!" Yolei exclaimed, and took a few steps toward the cliff. "Let's go!"  
Ken frowned. "Um, Yolei, shouldn't we check the cliff first, to be sure it's safe?"  
"Oh, right," Yolei said, and stretched out a toe carefully over the ground, then slowly set it down.  
Nothing happened.  
She took a few more steps out onto the cliff. Still nothing. "Okay, I think it's all right to come out here," Yolei called over her shoulder. Ken joined her, and they walked out to the edge of the cliff and looked over.  
The side of the cliff was honeycombed with holes, and dark mist slithered in and out of them like giant, hazy worms through a rotten apple. Yolei grimaced, and Ken put a hand on her shoulder.  
"Let's destroy this stuff," Yolei said, softly, but with anger and a hint of fear throbbing behind every word.  
"I couldn't agree more," Stingmon buzzed, flying out over the edge of the cliff and blasting away at the virus. "SPIKING STRIKE!" He sent the pink energy blade flying like a missile, instead of daring danger by actually touching the virus. It was a wise move; the virus hissed like water on a hot frying pan and shrank away, large chunks of it dissolving into thin air.  
"GRAND HORN!"  
The virus melted away under the attacks; it seemed that even though there was a lot of it there, it wasn't very strong.  
"Keep going, Stingmon!" Ken yelled, clenching his fists. "Don't give it a chance to recover!"  
"Right! SPIKING STRIKE!" More virus faded into oblivion.  
"If this keeps up," Yolei exclaimed, with a happy grin, "we'll be done here in no time!"  
"I don't know," Ken mused, frowning. "This seems too easy, somehow. We'd better stay on our guard."  
"Whatever you say," Yolei agreed. "But still, I think we're doing really well!"  
"Yeah..." Ken murmured. Something was troubling him, niggling at the edge of his mind, but he wasn't sure what. Whatever it was, though, he had a bad feeling about it...  
  
In the silent secretarial office of the music hall, which was closed for the afternoon, an abandoned laptop computer began to hum softly, as a strangely-shaped window appeared on the screen. Only a Digidestined would have recognized this window for what it was; a Digiport.  
Twenty minutes before, this screen had glowed, sparked, and belched out a mass of black fog, which had quickly wafted out the window and into the street. Now, it shone with light again, but this time, what came out was not a fog.  
"Where is she...?" Eyes that had once been a clear blue looked out the window to the street. "There..." An unpleasant smile spread across unwilling lips. "Hello, Kari..."  
  
That wasn't the only Digiport opening in that area. A few minutes later, a trio of familiar forms materialized in the air in Izzy's room, then fell to the floor.  
"Oof!"  
"Ow!"  
"Hey!"  
"Davis?" Sora said, looking up from where she sat on the bed. "Davis! Cody! You're here!" She paused, confused. "Patamon? What are you doing here? Where's TK...oh, my gosh! What happened to you?" She goggled, shocked, at Davis' blood-streaked face.  
Davis reached up self-consciously to touch his face; his nose was bleeding again.  
"TK happened to me," he said bitterly. "I knew he was no good..."  
"What? What do you mean, 'TK happened'?" Izzy blurted. "Don't tell me TK did that to you!"  
Joe, who had just arrived, looked mildly ill at the sight of the blood. However, purpose flared in his eyes.  
"Sora, where's your family's first aid kit?"  
"In the hall closet," Sora said quickly, and Joe hurried off to get it. "Cody, this has got to be another of Davis' whoppers, right? I mean, TK?!"  
"I hate to say it, but Davis is telling the truth," Cody said bleakly, rubbing his stomach. "TK went off to the lake while the rest of us were trying to communicate with you. When he came back, he was berserk! He hit Davis when he tried to stop him from going back to the real world...and me and Patamon, too, when we tried to help." Cody sighed. "I don't know what happened to him, but I don't like it one bit..."  
"He went nuts, that's what!" Davis insisted. "It had to happen eventually-"  
"The virus!" Izzy exclaimed. "That must be it! He was attacked by the virus!"  
"What?" Davis and Cody chorused, confused.  
"Whaddaya mean, the virus?" Davis added. "That thing that attacked our D-Terminals? How could that make TK go off his rocker?"  
"It attacks living beings and twists their emotions around upside-down and inside-out," Sora said dryly. "Not to mention takes over their bodies and goes...on...killing sprees... Oh, man, TK..." Her face began to crumple as the situation hit her. "He's such a sweet kid...I can't stand to think about what this must be doing to him!"  
"We don't know that he's even 'conscious'," Izzy said matter-of-factly. "For all we know, he's blacked out or something while the virus is in control."  
Sora shook her head, biting her lip. "But maybe not," she said, very quietly, and blinked back tears. Suddenly, she looked up, thinking of something even worse. "What's Kari going to do?" she exclaimed. "What if-"  
"Kari!" Davis yelled, sitting up very straight. "That's why we came so fast! TK went through the D-Port! For all we know, he's on the loose in Tokyo right now!"  
"Oh, no," Izzy groaned. "I can't believe this..."  
"What now?" Davis said suspiciously. He frowned. "Izzy, please tell me Kari is around the house somewhere, where we can keep an eye on her."  
"Um..." Izzy said nervously.  
"Okay, tell me that she's somewhere safe!" Davis insisted.  
"Ah..." Joe said, coming in with the first-aid kit.  
"At least tell me she's got someone *with* her!!" Davis yelled, beginning to panic. Sora shook her head, her eyes glistening with tears. "I can't believe this!" Davis bellowed, staring furiously at the older Digidestined.  
"Here, tilt your head back and pinch your nose with this," Joe said calmly, giving Davis a pad of gauze. Davis glared at him, not taking it. "Look, Davis, you're not going anywhere until that bleeding has stopped," Joe said with surprising firmness, "so you might as well get it done with now."  
"Oh, whatever," Davis said, snatching the pad and clamping it over his nose. "Bud da biddit by dose stobs beeding, I'b goig aftuh huw!"  
"Huh?" Izzy said, for once in his life being the utterly confused one.  
"He said he's going after Kari the minute his nose stops bleeding," Joe translated.  
"I'm not arguing with him," Sora said firmly. "Kari's going to need some help, fast...and so is TK."  
"I'm going with you!" Patamon persisted.  
"Fide by be," Davis agreed.  
"Cody, you can go find Yolei and Ken and help them," Joe said. "They're destroying the main hive of the virus in the Digital World."  
"Right!" Cody said, getting up and holding up his D3. "I'm ready!"  
"Good," Joe said, nodding.  
"Where's Tai?" Davis said curiously, noticing his hero's absence.  
"The Internet," Izzy said offhandedly, going back to his computer. "He's battling the virus."  
"Shouldn't we check on him?" Cody said, a bit worriedly. Izzy shrugged a shoulder, obviously confident in his friend.  
"Tai can take care of himself," he said calmly. "We've got more pressing issues to concentrate on right now."  
Over on the bed, Sora sighed heavily, looking at the wall. She had a really bad feeling, had had one ever since she'd watched Tai disappear from sight into the computer. Her stomach churned, with a weird feeling that reminded her of the time she'd gotten a bloody nose of her own at soccer practice and had swallowed a lot of blood rather than get it on her uniform...a sick, empty feeling. Remembering, she gulped, hoping that this whole plan would work...  
*I just *know* something's wrong, whatever Izzy thinks. Hold on, Tai...hold on...*  



	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7  
Tai scowled. "I can't come up with an idea just like that!" he cried. "I need something to work with! I need information!"  
"We need a *miracle*," Mimi muttered, breathing heavily. They were all watching the battle over their shoulders as they flew. Mimi suddenly remembered to look where they were going...and went white. "You guys...? Um, you guys?" She scowled. "Guys!!"  
"What is it?" Matt said, glancing over his shoulder... "Oh, sh-"  
*wham!*  
They impacted with the spire with crushing force; the collision tore Matt and Tai's arms from one another's grasp, and Tai went flying one way, as Mimi and Matt pin-wheeled in another. Mimi screamed, and Matt swore viciously as they watched their friend speeding away, out of control.  
"Oh, this is really good," Tai yelled sarcastically, and grabbed a spire, spinning around it a few times out of sheer momentum before finally stopping himself. Mimi and Matt braked against a carousel.  
"Tai! We'd better rendezvous at the...oh, not again!"  
"What?" Tai shouted back, confused at Matt's sudden trailing-off. He looked where Matt was looking... "Ack! Run away!!"  
The virus was boiling toward them, swarming 'upward' among the scattered confusion of the 'Net. In front of it, like insects in front of a tidal wave, the Digimon continued to flee, still taking potshots at the rapidly growing virus.  
"Mimi! It's eating something to grow!" Togemon yelled. "But I can't figure out what it is...it's not the data, that's for sure! It's just smashing that up, like it did in the Digital World!"  
"Don't worry about it!" Mimi called, trying to be comforting. "You're all doing your best, and that's the most we can-Tai! Look out!"  
Mimi had good reason to scream; an arm of the virus had just shot out, and was heading toward them. Matt shouted in alarm, and grabbed Mimi's arm again, shooting them into space with a kick of his legs.  
"Matt, what are you doing?!" Mimi protested.  
"Getting us out of there," Matt replied matter-of-factly. "If we stick around, we're virus-bait! Tai's running too, see?"  
Mimi turned to look, just in time to see the nebulous arm of fog shoot between them and Tai, cutting them off from each other...and cutting Tai off from all three of the Digimon.  
"Oh, no!"  
"I could learn to hate those words," Matt growled, and turned to look. He went white as a sheet as he realized the situation. "Tai's behind that virus?!"  
"I'm afraid so," MetalGarurumon bellowed from 'below' them, firing off an Ice Wolf Claw as he spoke. "He's on his own now; we can't go after him without blasting a hole through that entire arm of mist!"  
"If we touch this stuff, we'll go bonkers and attack *you* guys," Togemon shouted, a scowl darkening her features. "Ohhh, I can't stand this! It's so *unfair*! NEEDLE SPRAY!"  
The barrage of needles splintered against the fog, and Mimi winced as the damage was instantly repaired by still more virus.  
"There's too much of it!" Mimi wailed, bouncing them off of a waterfall of data with both feet. "We don't have a chance!"  
"Don't give up yet!" Matt said firmly, giving her arm a squeeze where it linked through his own. "We're a team, remember? We can get through anything, even a bunch of killer fog!"  
Mimi stared at him, her eyes big with tears.  
"Right..." she whispered. Then she narrowed her eyes, setting her chin stubbornly. "Let's go!"  
"That's my girl!" Matt shouted. *She's changed since the Digital World,* he realized. *She's a lot stronger than I thought. Not to mention good at figuring trajectories. Speaking of that...* He pushed off of another spiral of data, sending it flying back to hit the virus, which piled over and around it until it was obscured from view, sucking it down. Matt gulped and kept going...  
  
"SPIKING STRIKE!"  
"GRAND HORN!"  
"All right!" Yolei yelled, as even more of the virus vanished. "We're beating it, Ken! It's almost gone!"  
"I'd better run a quick scan, just to make sure," Ken said sensibly, reaching for his D-Terminal. He hit a few buttons, and grinned. "Hey, you're right! There's only a little left, in the farthest reaches of the tunnels under there!" He snorted. "The whole inside of this cliff is carved out with tunnels. It's like a termite mound down there, more virus than rock. I can't believe the virus did that much damage in just a few hours..."  
He tucked the D-Terminal back into his pocket. "Well, I guess you were right after all. This was surprisingly easy..."  
Yolei didn't answer. She seemed to be listening to something. Suddenly, she frowned. "Ken?"  
"Yeah?"  
"I thought I heard something..." She frowned again, thinking hard. Suddenly, she grabbed his arm. "Hold on! Repeat what you said just now!"  
"Um...there's only a little virus left?"  
"No, after that!" Yolei snapped, giving his arm an impatient little shake.  
"Oh! Uh, I said that it's like a termite nest down there, all full of tunnels-"  
"-more virus than rock!" Yolei finished. "Ken, we just destroyed most of that virus! That means..."  
"That means that the cliff's insides are just a bunch of thin stone framework now," Ken said, his eyes becoming huge. Then he flinched. "Did you hear that?"  
"Yes," Yolei said softly. "That's the noise I heard a second ago, only louder..."  
The noise came again, and this time it was unmistakable; the sound of crumbling rock.  
"Oh, perfecto," Yolei muttered. "Let's get out of here!"  
They began to hurry off of the cliff, Ken limping slightly on his painful ankle...  
If Ken had kept his D-Terminal out a bit longer, he would have noticed the arm of virus snaking its way upward through the twisting burrows of rock, some of which had only paper-thin walls of stone between them and the next tunnel. As it was, he didn't see it at all...until it blasted through the ground at the edge of the cliff, shooting toward his feet in a lolloping slither, wrapping around his ankles and sending him crashing to the ground.  
"Not agai-argh!"  
"Ken!" Yolei cried, and turned around. The tendril of virus tightened its grip on Ken's ankle, and began to drag him away with surprising strength as he tried to dig his fingers into the ground and stop himself.  
"Yolei...run..." he gasped, as the virus hauled him backwards toward the edge, more tendrils joining it from the side of the cliff. "The cliff is...going to fall..."  
"I know!" she wailed, torn between escaping and trying to help him. *It's impossible to stop this thing before it's too late...but can I live with myself, knowing that I watched him die, and did nothing?*  
The answer was swift and left no room for protest. Taking a deep breath, Yolei began to run back toward him. He was moving too quickly...the virus obviously intended to pull him over the edge of the cliff. It might not have been intelligent, but it was pure evil, and evil never goes down without trying to take someone with it. She wasn't going to make it in time...  
As he passed the hole that the virus had broken in the ground, Ken grabbed the edge. The sharp stone cut at his fingers, but he held on, ignoring the pain. He didn't dare look up to see if Yolei had made it to safety yet.  
"Ken! Hang on!"  
"Yolei, what on earth do you think you're doing?!" he yelled, staring at her as she came running toward him. "I told you to go! I don't have a chance!"  
"You didn't give up on me," Yolei shouted firmly, still running toward him, "and I'm sure not going to give up on you!"  
Ken stared at her, gratitude in his crystal-blue eyes...  
And the virus gave a mighty heave, and dragged his fingers free of the edge of the hole. He began to slide rapidly backward, and then was lifted off of the ground as the virus reared back over the edge of the cliff, about to fall.  
Yolei leaped forward, catching his hands just as the virus reared back. Their hands clasped together, Yolei dug in her feet and braced herself against the stone, her teeth clenched with effort. Ken cried out, his torn hands protesting, but only held on more tightly.  
A loud rumble of crumbling stone reached their ears, and the cliff shook.  
"What are we going to do?" Ken yelled over the grating thunder of rock shifting and tumbling against itself deep within the cliff. Yolei swallowed hard.  
"I don't know..."  



	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8  
Kari stared at the dark fog filling the street from her hiding place around the corner of the office building next door to the music hall. People were running and screaming as the cloud of mist grew; it reached a car parked at the side of the road and swarmed over it like a flood of darkness. The car shuddered, threw off sparks from under the hood, and exploded in a ball of flame, sending chunks of metal flying in every direction.  
A piece of what had been a door ricocheted off of the brick wall only a foot from Kari's face; a man trying to flee into the alley between the buildings was struck between the shoulders with another hunk of debris, and went down with a cry. He stumbled to his feet again and staggered away, leaving a trail of red behind him, his cries for help lost in the pandemonium.  
Kari shuddered, feeling sick. She'd been there for perhaps twenty minutes, and had used up most of her film already. The fog had started as a small cloud, perhaps half the size of a VW, but seemed to grow with every bit of destruction it wreaked.  
"As if it fed on pain and fear," Kari whispered, her eyes huge. The explosion had faded, leaving a heap of twisted metal, blazing like a funeral pyre. She reached for her camera and snapped a photo of the wreck.  
The carnage had begun a few minutes after her arrival, and had increased with every frightening thing the mist had done. It had shattered windows by touching them, blown up at least a dozen cars, and grabbed people by the arms and legs to haul them into itself. None had come out yet, and Kari was beginning to doubt that they ever would.  
"If it's really fear that it thrives on, having a bunch of terrified prisoners is like an all-it-can-eat buffet," Kari said with a dark look at the virus, which was continuing to grow.  
She shivered, and let her camera fall to hang from its strap around her neck. "I wonder if TK and the others got back yet. I hope they're okay..."  
"Hello," came a soft whisper in her ear. Kari's eyes lit up.  
"TK!" she cried, and started to turn around, but two warm arms wrapped around her from behind, gently holding her.  
"Shh...don't talk so loudly. I'm here."  
Kari frowned; his voice was odd...slightly hoarse, maybe? "TK? You sound...weird."  
"I'm kind of tired," the familiar, yet somehow strange voice said.  
Kari sighed. *Anyone would be, after what we've all been through. Poor TK...*  
"Me, too," she agreed, and let herself relax, melting into his arms. It felt so much better, so much safer, to have him there with her...  
His arms tightened around her. Kari blinked, surprised, not sure what to make of this. Then she stiffened as she felt TK's lips touch her neck.  
"Stop that," she scolded, frowning and trying to turn around, but he tightened his hold even more, making her gasp in surprise. "TK, you're hurting me! Stop it!" He laughed, and she shivered; that was *not* TK's laugh. Then he kissed her again. "Stop it right now!" she cried, beginning to panic. "This isn't funny! What are you-"  
She froze, horrified. One of his hands had slipped under her shirt.  
"Ugh! Get away from me!!" she screamed, and slammed her elbow into his stomach. He doubled over with an *oof*, dropping his arms from around her to clutch his injured stomach, and glared up at her with hateful, dark eyes that roiled with black fog.  
Kari's own stomach did a flip-flop inside of her.  
"You're not TK," she whispered, feeling sick at what could have happened if she hadn't realized in time... "What *are* you?"  
TK hissed. "I *am* TK...but he's not the one in the driver's seat. Very quick, Kari. I'm impressed." He grinned, straightening up. "Since you're so good at guessing, how about we try a different game? Maybe a little hide-and-seek..."  
He grinned, a horrible grin, and took a step forward. Kari stepped back, her spine turning to ice, and realized that behind her, there was nothing but virus-fog, filling the whole street...and that TK, or whatever he was now, was between her and the only way out.  
"If TK's not...driving..." she said, trying to stall for time, "then where is he?"  
"Well, I guess you could say he's...in the trunk," TK said, sounding very pleased with this state of affairs.  
"Can he see me?" Kari whispered, not sure if she wanted the answer to be yes or no.  
"Oh, he's seeing and feeling everything that I am," TK chuckled. "You wouldn't believe the fight he's putting up, or trying to, anyway...pitiful." He paused, as if listening. "In fact, I think he's almost ready to cry..."  
Kari ground her teeth, her heart crying out to her best friend. "Shut up!" she cried, hating with all her heart this thing that was using TK like a toy. "You disgusting thing! Shut up!"  
The virus laughed, ignoring her words. "Do you know what's the best part? I have no mind of my own, no emotions except those I borrow. I may be...adjusting them, but I can't feel anything that TK hasn't felt. Technically, I *am* him...and I can do nothing that he hasn't wanted to do."  
"Except that you twist it into something completely different," Kari said, glaring at the dark eyes that didn't belong in TK's sweet face. "I get what you're saying, but I also get the facts you're holding back. If TK has something that he doesn't like, you use that to make yourself hate it. You took his friendship for me and turned it into your own repulsive desire. You're nothing but a mental parasite!" She was standing with her hands clenched into fists at her sides now, so angry she could have spit nails. *How dare that...that *thing*...claim that it is anything like my angel?!*  
"Oh, good, you're angry," TK purred. "That makes it so much easier for me to take you. Let's see, I believe we were going to play a game of hide-and-seek?" He grinned, and began to move menacingly toward her. "I'm It..."  
Kari gulped, looking over her shoulder; the virus was even closer now, and beginning to stretch out cloudy arms toward her. Torn and terrified, she looked frantically from the monster advancing on her to the horror waiting to take her in and make her a monster, too.  
"Here, kitty, kitty," TK snarled, and began to reach for her...  
"You stay away from her, TR!!!"  
A purple-haired projectile leaped toward the oncoming boy, slamming into him and taking him down with a flying tackle. Kari saw her chance and ran, ducking around the now fist-fighting boys and fleeing down the street. At the edge of freedom, she slowed, and stopped.  
*How can I just leave them? I have to try and help Davis to get rid of that thing; it's the only way to save TK!*  
Turning, she hurried back toward them.  
Davis had pinned TK by kneeling on both of his arms, and was whaling away at his face, his eyes flaming with anger.  
"How dare you try to hurt Kari, you jerk!" Davis yelled, pounding his fists into TK's face with fierce satisfaction. "How dare you-acckkkk..."  
TK laughed, cruelly; he was too far-gone for the blows to hurt him, and the situation had been all too easy to reverse. In one swift motion, he had kicked Davis off of him, surged to his feet, and grabbed the would-be hero's throat in a grip of steel. With a few purposeful steps, he shoved the gulping, struggling boy backwards, toward the wall of fog.  
"Do you know what I find funniest about this, Davis?" He grinned. "You're TK's rival, and yet he's fighting me every step of the way, trying to stop me from hurting you." He took a long, deliberate look at Davis' face, his victim's eyes huge with fear in his bloody face. "I really don't see why he's wasting his energy on a miserable worm like you."  
Then, he thrust his arm forward, forcing Davis into range of the hungry fog.  
Running toward them, Kari saw Davis gasp in sudden agony, his eyes wide, his mouth falling open... She couldn't see the arm of virus that had plunged silently into his back.  
The battle was short. Davis was already so full of righteous anger that it was short work for the virus to twist it into poisonous hate. His eyes darkened, as he glared viciously at the boy holding him there...  
And then, with a snarl, he broke TK's grasp, throwing himself forward into the fray.  



	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9  
Running through the woods with Armadillomon at his heels, Cody heard a strange, crumbling sound ahead of him. He frowned, slowing his step as he came to the edge of the trees...  
A cry resounded through the air.  
"That sounds like Ken!" Cody exclaimed, beginning to run again in the direction of the sound. He broke through the cover of the trees...and froze, horrified, at the scene before him. "Oh, no...Ken! Yolei!"  
The dark-haired boy was suspended in midair, a long tentacle of virus wrapped around his ankles, holding him fast; Yolei held his hands tightly in her own, her heels dug into the ground but slowly sliding forward, a few centimeters at a time. Her face was twisted with effort, and Ken's with pain. Further out, their Digimon struggled to reach them, but writhing strands of virus barred the way, and dodged any attack the Digimon threw at them. None of them saw Cody where he stood at the edge of the woods...  
"Armadillomon, I've got to call for help!" Cody reached for his D-Terminal...but it wasn't there. "Oh, great! That's just great," he snapped, grimacing. "I must have left it back at Izzy's!" He shook as he stared out at his friends. "I've got to help them somehow..." He started to run forward, but Armadillomon caught the hem of his shirt in his teeth, stopping him. "Let me go!" Cody shouted, glaring back at the sturdy little Digimon. "I have to help them, somehow!"  
Armadillomon shook his head, hard. "Oo can't, Co-ee! Kiffs gun faw!"  
"What?" Cody said, stopping his struggles. Armadillomon let go of his shirt and coughed a few times.  
"Cody, listen for a minute!"  
"I am listening," Cody protested. Armadillomon shook his head.  
"Not to me! Listen!"  
Cody paused, listening...  
"I don't hear...hey! It's that crumbling noise again!"  
"Exactly," Armadillomon agreed. "Cody, you can't go out there. That cliff is falling apart, and if you set foot on it, you'll probably just tip the balance and bring the whole thing down around their ears!"  
"Oh, no..." Cody whispered, turning to look at his struggling friends. "Armadillomon, there's got to be something I can do!"  
"I'm afraid not, Cody," the little shelled Digimon said sadly. "I know my rock and earth better than anyone, and there's nothing we can do for now...except watch for an opening, and keep out fingers crossed for their safety."  
Biting his lip, Cody stared out across the cliff at the small battle raging for his friends' lives, feeling helpless beyond belief...  
  
"Izzy!"  
The computer jock turned to stare at Sora, who was sitting bolt upright on the bed.  
"What is it, Sora?"  
Sora's face was pale, and she was shaking slightly. "Izzy," she said, softly but urgently, "have you checked on Tai and the others lately?"  
"Not since they first got into the 'Net," Izzy admitted. "Why?"  
Grimacing, Sora got up and hurried over. "Check on them," she said, her eyes full of fear.  
"What? But Sora-"  
"Check on them!" Sora cried, clenching her fists at her sides with frustration. "Izzy, I've got this really bad feeling about them! I can't stand sitting here and telling myself it's just something I ate any longer, or I'll go nuts! Koushiro Izumi, check on them, now!!"  
"Okay, but I still don't think-" Izzy began, bringing up a viewing window. His voice trailed off as the sound came on, and he heard Matt's voice.  
"...could use some reinforcements, or something! Can anybody hear me? We need help, and fast!"  
"Matt, I'm here!" Izzy said quickly into the microphone. "Where are you?"  
"It's not like we've got a roadmap, Izzy," Mimi said darkly. "I haven't got the foggiest idea!"  
"There isn't even an up or down here," Matt added. "My sense of direction is totally whacked..."  
"Oh, there you are," Izzy said as his window finally zoomed in on Mimi and Matt, bouncing 'upward' through space in the wild disarray of data that was the Internet. He frowned. "Could you guys sit still for a second? My window's having trouble getting a lock on you-"  
"No time for that!" Matt yelled. "Look down!"  
With a concerned expression, Izzy scanned the view down...and choked.  
"Where did that *come* from?!"  
Sora, looking over his shoulder, had gone even paler. "I hate it when I'm right," she muttered, twisting her hands together.  
The mass of virus filled the screen, boiling up after the fleeing Digidestined. Their Digimon stood out as tiny spots of color, still futilely trying to destroy the wave of blackness. Sora spotted something, or rather, didn't spot something, and bit her lip.  
"You guys..." she said uneasily into the computer mike. "Where's Tai?"  
Matt and Mimi looked at each other, wincing.  
"Um...well, you see...he's kind of...uh..."  
"It's no good stalling, Matt," Mimi said sadly, swinging them past a looming spire. "Sora, Tai's behind the virus."  
"WHAT?!"  
  
Holding tightly to Yolei's hands, Ken squeezed his eyes shut as his ankle let out a scream of pain...  
No. It wasn't pain.  
A feeling of alien *something* grew up his leg, then both legs; a cold, burning, violent feeling that lit a fire of fear in his soul.  
"No..." he gritted, trying to *force* it out, to stop it... "I'm not going down that path again! NO..."  
His vision swam, and darkened...  
He stood on a rolling dune of black sand, starless night all around him. He was still aware, with a tiny part of his mind, of the battle going on within his real body...but it was a very tiny part. He took a step forward...  
Walls sprang up, tall, black walls, blotting out the sight of the endless black desert. He began to run, fleeing through the hallways of this terrible dream-world somewhere between safety and oblivion, knowing that something terrible was following him...  
Suddenly, he came out into a room, a room with a high, vaulted ceiling and tall black walls. A dark figure stood in the center of the enormous room...a familiar figure...  
Ken flinched, and began to back away, but a cloud of virus flowed from the door he'd come in through. He started to run, trying to skirt the figure, but the virus flooded around the edges of the room, trapping him. It stayed close to the walls, roiling over itself in silent watchfulness. Swallowing hard, Ken slowly backed toward the middle of the room...  
His shoulder bumped into something, and he leapt forward, whirling around. The figure stood there, and at this range, he could make out its face...  
"Pathetic fool!" the Digimon Emperor snarled, his cape flying out behind him. "How dare you jostle someone as perfect as I?!"  
"No..." Ken hissed, staring at the familiar purple glasses and spiked hair. "No, you can't be here! I came to terms with you! I'm through with you...I'm free!"  
"You'll never be free of me, Ken," the Emperor jeered, his face darkening. "I'm here inside of you, forever...and there's nothing you can do about it."  
"No!" Ken yelled, beginning to back away, but something strange was happening to the Emperor...  
He was growing. Growing, taller and taller, until he towered over the frightened boy, laughing evilly. Bending his head to look down, he reached for Ken, his huge hand enfolding him, crushing him as he lifted him to the level of his enormous face, still laughing.  
"Ken... You. Are. Me!"  
"No!! I can't be you! I can't be the Emperor! Somebody help me..." Ken cried, his voice breaking to a whimper. "Please, I don't want to be here anymore..."  
"Ken, you're not the Emperor!"  
"WHAT?" the huge figure boomed, glowering.  
"You're not that person anymore, Ken! I don't know what's happening to you, but don't let it get to you! You've changed, I know you have!"  
"Yolei..." Ken whispered, his crystal-blue eyes lighting with hope.  
"You shed that part of yourself like an old skin when you joined our team, Ken, and it will only have power over you if you let it! Please hold on, Ken! Don't let go of me, please!"  
"I'm not..." Ken murmured. "I'm not letting go...I won't let him get me..." His eyes narrowed. "Yolei!!"  
"NO!" the Emperor boomed, but it was too late. The room, the darkness, the menacing figure all shattered into a thousand pieces, and Ken blinked them away and found himself back on the cliff-side, clinging to Yolei's hands, the virus still dragging at him as he hung in midair.  
"Ken!" Yolei cried as his eyes opened. "Ken, what happened? You were yelling about the Emperor..." Her voice trailed off as she was dragged a few more centimeters toward the edge. After she'd gotten her footing back, Ken answered.  
"I was seeing things...it was like I was dreaming..." His eyes widened. "The virus! It tried to take me, like it did you..."  
"But you fought it off!" Yolei said jubilantly. "Ken, I'm so proud of you-"  
"I couldn't have done it without you, Yolei," Ken gasped, as the virus redoubled its efforts. "I was about to give up, but you saved me..."  
Then the virus began to yank harder than ever, and there was no more time for speech. Still, their eyes stayed locked together as they fought the pull of death, exchanging words that no spoken language could have said...  



	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10  
Swinging along a row of spires hand-over-hand, Tai glanced over his shoulder, and flinched at the sight of the virus pouring toward him.  
"I could use a little help right about now!" he yelled, hoping against hope that someone would hear him. The virus was waaay too close for comfort, and he was getting tired. *I don't know how much longer I can run,* he thought frantically. *If you can even call this running...* "Somebody? Anybody? Uh...open sesame!"  
A window suddenly opened above and ahead of him...or at least, to his point of view. Izzy's worried face appeared in it, with Sora behind him.  
"Hey, shweet," Tai gasped.  
"Tai! Are you okay?"  
"Does it *look* like I'm okay?" Tai snapped breathlessly at the techie. Izzy shook his head.  
"Not in the least. Can you hold out for a few more minutes?"  
"Izzy, I'm about to pass out!" Tai yelled. Izzy looked injured, and Tai groaned, trying to keep going and talk at the same time without running into anything. "Look, I don't want to sound angry or anything, but this is not the best situation!"  
"Yeah, I copy that," Izzy said, beginning to type away. "The virus can have the 'Net for now. I'm getting you all back here, pronto-"  
His face drained of color. Tai's heart sank.  
"What? What is it?"  
Izzy's voice shook.  
"My program... It's...gone..."  
  
"Aaaah!"  
"Hold on, Ken!" Yolei gritted, feeling her feet scraping slowly across the ground with the inexorable pull of the virus. "Don't let go!" A loud crunching noise came from the ground beneath them, and the cliff shuddered...but this time it didn't stop shuddering.  
"Yolei..." His eyes were crystal-clear, and desperate. "You have to go...you have to run... *Now*..."  
"I-I can't," Yolei stammered, her own eyes filling with tears. "I won't leave you..."  
"You've got to!" Ken struggled for breath to put into words. "Please...go!"  
"No!" Yolei wailed. The rumbling grew louder, and the pebbles lying around her feet began to dance, as if an earthquake were beginning. "You can't make me leave you, Ken! I'm with you to the end, no matter what, and there's nothing you can do to change my mind, so just stop trying!"  
Ken gazed at her, stunned. *Stupid, stubborn Yolei...why do I care about you so much? Why can't I bring myself to just let go?*  
"Yolei...I..."  
"Ken?" Yolei said, uncertainly, as the cliff quaked beneath them and the rumbling became like thunder. Ken felt the virus suddenly loosen its hold on him, as the sound of falling rocks within the cliff intensified. Yolei's tear-streaked face looked up at him, and as he looked back at her, he knew the answer to his question.  
"Yolei, I l-"  
Without any warning, the cliff dropped out from under them with a sound like an explosion, sending chunks of rock flying. At the edge of the forest, Cody let out a cry of horror.  
"Ken! Yolei! No!!" With a sob, he dropped to his knees, Armadillomon beside him. "Oh, no..."  
  
"What?!" Sora and Tai both yelled at the same time. "What do you mean, gone?" Tai added.  
"It's gone!" Izzy repeated, sounding as though he were bridging on panic. "As in ruined! Destroyed! Vanquished, dead, kaput, history!"  
"Will you stop talking like that!" Tai bellowed. "Those are not the most comforting words to hear right now!"  
Izzy didn't seem to hear him. "The virus must have gotten into my file system through the Internet connection and eaten it, or...whatever it does! I can't believe this!"  
"*You* can't believe it?" Tai cried, shooting another glance at the virus, which was only a few dozen feet behind him and gaining fast. It was like being chased by a deadly tidal wave... "I'm the one who's about to be meat for the grinder here!"  
"Tai, hold on!" Sora wailed, gripping the back of Izzy's chair so that her knuckles turned white. "Izzy, you can duplicate it, right?"  
"In five minutes, yes," Izzy said, already typing, "but I think we're down to a few seconds here! And Mimi and Matt are in trouble, too..."  
Tai, still struggling along, his entire body burning with exhaustion, looked up at the window. Fear was beginning to glimmer in his chocolate-brown eyes.  
"Izzy...can we hurry it up, please?" he gritted between clenched teeth, kicking off of a spire. It shot back and pierced the oncoming virus like a spear, but disappeared harmlessly into the darkness...  
"Tai," Sora whispered, her bad feeling from earlier swelling into a mountain of dread that choked her throat and sent icy roots of fear into the depths of her stomach. "Please, just a few more minutes...please..." she begged whoever might be Up There.  
"Not enough time," Tai said tensely, looking over his shoulder. "Not enough time..." An arm of virus shot toward him, and he gulped. "Izzy! Hurry up!"  
"I'm typing, I'm typing," Izzy muttered distractedly, his fingers flying across the keyboard. Sora bit her lip, not noticing as the metallic taste of blood trickled into her mouth.  
"Please..."  
Suddenly, with a mighty lurch, the virus threw itself forward, enveloping Tai in a eruption of black ooze. He disappeared from sight, his hand stretched out toward them. Sora's hands flew to her mouth.  
"TAI!!"  
The swelling flood of virus spilled over a Ferris wheel, waterfalling down the side of it in great gobs of ooze that tumbled 'down' to meet more virus coming from below as the colorful wheel disappeared into the mess. Within it, Tai struggled and flailed, trying to get out. It was like swimming through icy cold molasses. He broke the surface, throwing his head back, gagging on the bitter virus.  
"SORA!" he choked, and was pulled under again. Sora stared in horror at the screen, her face white.  
"Come on, Tai...come on..."  
Izzy's fingers were frozen on the keys, his face shocked. *But...but Tai always gets away...* he thought dazedly. He couldn't count the number of times Tai had escaped with a close shave...he would get free of that stuff, any minute now...  
Mimi and Matt huddled in the shelter of a nearby carousel, holding tightly to each other, terrified.  
"The virus..." Mimi whispered, staring at it. "What's it doing?" It had stopped chasing them, and was moving steadily toward the area where they had last seen Tai heading.  
"Izzy, what's going on?" Matt yelled. 'On...on...on...' the echoes rang through the cavernous, suddenly quiet Internet, bouncing back to him from the silently floating debris all about. There was no response. Mimi began to shake.  
"There's only one thing that could be happening," she said softly, shivering. "It must have gotten Tai..."  
The virus rolled together, sucking its long tentacle-like clouds together into one great mass of black...and then, suddenly, seemed to expand, bursting outward, inflating into an enormous, perfect sphere. As it reached that shape, it froze. The only movement from it was the slight rippling of the outer surface.  
The three Digimon alighted on the edge of the carousel platform next to the humans, in their Rookie forms again.  
"Mimi...what's happening to Tai?" Agumon said timidly. Mimi's eyes filled with tears; unable to answer, she buried her face in Matt's shirt and began to cry.  
Matt just held her, feeling so helpless that it *hurt*. His best friend was in there, maybe hurt, maybe even dying, and there was nothing he could do about it!  
"Tai..." he murmured, wanting to howl with anger and frustration and fear. But the Digimon looked up at him with such hopeful gazes...and he held his tears in, and stroked Mimi's hair, as he watched his best friend die...  



	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11  
"You guys, stop it!" Kari wailed, running toward the snarling, fighting boys. She'd seen them fight before, but this was deadly!  
This wasn't their fault...  
But this could kill them, all the same.  
"You guys, please!" she cried, helpless, not sure what to do. They rolled over and over, slamming their fists into each other. Suddenly, TK broke free, leaping to his feet. Davis followed him, but TK was ready, and brought both fists around like a hammer, slamming them into Davis' stomach and winding him. As the stunned boy doubled over, TK grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him, hard. He stumbled back and hit the nearby wall of the building Kari had hidden behind, the impact driving the breath out of his body once again. Slowly, he slid to the ground, clutching his stomach. Kari felt her body turn to ice as this thing that wasn't TK strode purposefully forward, ready to finish the feud once and for all.  
"TK! Stop!" she screamed, running to stand between Davis's unmoving form and the oncoming TK. "Fight it, TK, don't let it make you do this!"  
TK's face twisted into a nasty grin, and he kept coming.  
"TK?" Kari said in a very small voice, as her insides turned to water...  
"Kari, get out of his way!"  
Turning to look in the direction of the voice, Kari saw Patamon winging down the street toward her. The little monster's face was frantic, and he was pushing himself as hard as he could to reach her before...  
Stars burst before her eyes. Stumbling back, Kari raised her eyes to TK's dark ones. His fists were clenched, and her chest felt as if it was in a steel vise, squeezing her tightly where he had struck her.  
"TK..." she gasped, her brown eyes filled with tears.  
"Move," he growled, raising his fists again.  
"No," she whispered, choking on her own tears. "I won't let you do this to him. I won't let you force him to become a killer!" Shaking her hair, and a few tears, from her eyes, she clenched her fists at her sides. "Do you hear me? I won't let you!"  
"Amusing," the virus hissed. "You don't have a chance." It lashed out again, snapping her head back. She clutched her bleeding lip, glaring at it...and her gaze softened at the sight of her friend's face.  
"TK, please...remember me. Fight it..."  
The virus laughed, and then suddenly became silent with single-minded purpose. It struck out with vicious force, once, twice, three times. Kari fell to her knees, her arms wrapped around herself as she bent double, still refusing to move from between the virus and its unconscious victim. Slowly, painfully, she struggled to her feet again, looking down at the cement as she wavered on unsteady balance.  
"You foolish girl! Get out of the way!" the thing snarled. "This is futile! Do you think he can stop me from killing you, too?"  
Kari raised her head, meeting its angry gaze with calm serenity.  
"Yes," she whispered, her breath coming in short gasps.  
"Then you are truly a fool," the virus said coldly, and slammed its fist into her chest with unnatural strength. She flew back, stumbling and falling over a pile of wreckage. There was a crunch as she landed, sprawled across the stone and metal.  
She didn't move.  
"Kari!" Patamon yelled, panicking as he finally-too late!-reached her. TK froze, staring at the still form lying on the ground.  
"Kari?" he whispered, the darkness in his eyes beginning to churn. He paused, blinked, began to shake uncontrollably...  
Then, suddenly, his face cleared, as the mist slipped from him in a cloud and died.  
"KARI!"  
Running toward her, horror in his eyes instead of darkness, TK fell to his knees next to the crumpled body. Kari's face was still, smeared with blood from a cut under her eye.  
"Kari, wake up, please wake up, I tried to stop it, I tried as hard as I could," he wept, his words running into one long sentence. "Kari, please! Hold on..."  
"What did you do to her?!"  
TK turned to see Davis, struggling to his feet, his face horrified...his eyes clear and purple.  
"I didn't do anything," TK said, still crying. "The virus...you saw what it can do..." He shuddered, feeling suddenly sick as memories of things he had done while under its power washed over him. Darkness swam before his eyes, and a wave of nausea passed through him, but he fought it down, along with the urge to pass out. When his vision cleared again, Davis was kneeling across from him, on Kari's other side.  
"Is she...?" he said softly.  
"I don't know," TK said, swallowing hard against the tightness in his throat. "I just don't know..."  
  
Sora felt like her world was spinning around her and wouldn't stop. Her ears rang, and she fought down the panic that was rising in her like a tide.  
"Why isn't he out yet?" she whimpered, staring into Izzy's monitor at the globe of writhing virus. "What's wrong?"  
Joe ran into the room then, back from putting away the first-aid kit. "Sora?" She didn't look at him, but tightened her grip on Izzy's chair. Joe paled, getting a bad feeling about all of this... "Izzy, what's happening?"  
"Tai's in there!" Sora cried, before Izzy could answer. "The virus has him!"  
"What?!"  
Izzy swallowed, regaining a little bit of composure. "The virus has stopped attacking the others, which is a good thing...but it's gathered itself into a sphere, which-unless I miss my guess-is decidedly bad."  
"Huh?" Joe blurted, even more confused.  
"Why?" Sora asked, biting her lip.  
"A sphere is the strongest geometric shape there is," Izzy said, his eyebrows knit with worry. "If it's arranging itself into that formation, I would presume that it is because the virus wants to maximize its strength, probably because of a serious difficulty or hang-up in integrating its latest victim into its control network."  
"Meaning...what?" Joe said, not sure that he wanted to know what the point of all that techno-babble was...  
Izzy sighed. "Meaning, Tai must be putting up the mother of all fights against that thing," he translated, rubbing his temples wearily.  
"Good!" Sora exclaimed, and clapped her hands together, hope flaring in her heart. "Then he'll beat it, and-"  
Izzy interrupted, raising a hand. "Not good. There's no imaginable way for Tai to beat that stuff on his own. Period. And I've been getting some extremely negative readings on the way this stuff operates. Sora, if he keeps fighting it, he's..." He trailed off, as though his throat had tightened too much for speech. He looked haunted...  
"What?" Sora cried, twisting her hands together. "Izzy, for the love of God, finish your sentences!"  
Izzy gulped. "It's draining his strength too quickly," he said softly, his eyes grim. "Sora...it's going to kill him."  
  
*coughcoughcoughhackcoughcough...*  
Gradually, hesitantly, as if still not believing it was possible, Ken opened one eye...then the other. He was alive. Or, at least, he was pretty sure of it.  
*If I am dead, though, I sure don't have much to look forward to...unless heaven is gray.*  
It took him a second more to realize that the grayness was dust. A thick, heavy cloud of choking dust, gritty and dark, swirling around him and filling the air. As his ears recovered from the crash still ringing in them, he recognized the muffled rumbling and crunching of settling rubble. Ken frowned, disoriented.  
*The cliff...we were on the cliff, and it fell...*  
His skin, hair, clothes...all were gray with dust, except for places where dark red streaks punctuated the monotony. His eyes were bright splashes of blue in his dust-caked face. Sitting up with a groan and glancing down at himself, Ken decided that none of his injuries were life-threatening. He wiped his grimy face on his equally grimy sleeve, realized that he was getting nowhere, and sighed, blinking stinging dust out of his eyes as he racked his brains to remember the moments before the fall.  
*We. Who's we...?*  
He froze.  
"Yolei!"  
The cry was cut off by another fit of coughing, and he buried his face in his hands, trying to get his lungs back under control. Struggling to his feet, he wavered, nearly falling over again with coughing as he tried to get a good breath and instead was choked by the filthy air.  
"Yolei! Can you hear me?"  
Dizzy and dreading what he knew he might find, Ken stumbled through the roiling dust, futilely trying to shield his face with his sleeve as he called out Yolei's name. The choking cloud was so thick that he could barely see his feet, and he kept tripping and faltering over heaps of loose stone debris. His ankle screamed with pain, and he felt light-headed, but he kept going, doggedly refusing to give up...  
"Yolei!"  
*crunch!*  
Startled, Ken leapt back. When nothing happened, he frowned and carefully knelt to get a better look at the object he'd stepped on.  
It was a pair of spectacles. Bent beyond repair, both lenses cracked...but still recognizable.  
And, after all, it wasn't like anyone else in the Digital World wore glasses.  
"Oh, no..." Ken whispered, picking them up, gingerly avoiding the broken glass. He looked up, scanning the ground around himself, but the dust still hadn't settled, and it was impossible to see for more than a few feet in any direction. "Yolei! Please, answer me! Yolei..."  
A slight breeze churned through the mist, and it parted like a curtain for a split second. The short moment was long enough for Ken to spot a smudge of familiar lavender through the gap. It closed instantly, but he was already on his feet, hurrying toward the spot.  
"Yo-"  
Ken fell silent, his blue eyes shocked.  
Yolei lay on her side on a heap of rubble, her long hair spread around her like silk. Even the dusting of gray on it couldn't blot out the vibrant color. Dazed, Ken took a few steps forward, fell to his knees next to her, reached out to touch the vivid locks...  
Her legs were half-buried, invisible beneath a heavy layer of the remains of the cliff. Her face was pale and smeared with dust and blood. Her left hand rested beside her face, palm up, fingers curled slightly. Her eyes were closed.  
She didn't stir.  
Ken's lips moved silently, but no words came out. His hand trembled as he gently touched her face. Words, cried out over the rumble of a shattering world, rang in his mind.  
* "You can't make me leave you, Ken! I'm with you to the end, no matter what, and there's nothing you can do to change my mind, so just stop trying!" *  
"The end," Ken whispered, staring at Yolei's silent lips, her eyelashes resting gently on her dusty cheeks, her slender fingers, unmoving...never moving....  
Never again.  
"NO!" The cry ripped from him like a curse, tearing his throat, tightening a strangling agony around his heart. "NO!" he cried again, and the cry became a sob, and his voice broke as tears began to make their muddy tracks down the dust on his face. "No," he whispered, her face blurring in his vision. "I wanted to take care of you, but I couldn't. I failed you...just like I failed everyone else." Gulping, he gazed at her still face. "I never told you..." He lifted a hand in helpless grief, and then slowly turned away, wrapping his arms around his knees and resting his face in them, letting the tears flow.  
"I never even said goodbye," he whispered, and gave himself up to emptiness.  



	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12  
"How long does it take to get a program running again?" Sora cried in panicked frustration as Izzy hit the Enter button for the fifteenth time.  
"I don't understand it!" Izzy snapped at the monitor. "It won't load! It's like there's a hidden firewall there that I can't get around..."  
"Then *break* through it! Izzy, you have to get me in there!" Sora shouted, leaping to her feet.  
"Sora, that's the last thing we should do!" Izzy shouted back, trying to make her see reason. "You can't help him, you can't even talk to him! He couldn't hear you even if you were right in there next to him, and I'm not going to let you kill yourself trying to pull some stupid stunt for his sake! Now sit *down*!"  
Opening her mouth to tell Izzy exactly what she thought of him, Sora was cut off by a grim-faced Joe.  
"He's right, Sora. There's nothing we can do for Tai right now. The least we can do for him is to keep you safe."  
Ashamed, Sora sat, her head throbbing with hopelessness.  
Izzy paused, thinking. "I have to call someone," he said quickly, and stood, hurrying out of the room.  
"Hold on!" Joe said, but Izzy was gone. Shaking his head, Joe followed at a run.  
"You guys, wait-gahh!" Sora cried, slamming a fist into Izzy's desk and making the keyboard dance. Her gaze moved to the monitor, and she swallowed. "It's not fair!" she wailed, gritting her teeth. "Tai's *dying* in there, and there's nothing I can do! I can't help him, I can't talk to him...I can't even *reach* him!" The black globe of virus pulsed silently, oblivious to her anger and fear.  
The sight of it seemed to hypnotize Sora, hateful as it was. Her eyes lingered on it, and then...something happened. Her vision...*shifted*, somehow, and suddenly the screen filled her eyes, blotting out the room around her. Slowly, she stood, and took a step toward the computer. Her hand stretched out, and her fingertips grazed the screen...  
And then, in a moment slower than syrup, yet faster than light, she was *there*.  
The virus-globe floated before her; a shining window into Izzy's room was behind her. To her left, a carousel hovered, human and Digimon figures huddled together on it...but Sora didn't have time for hellos. The virus held her gaze, and she moved toward it steadily...  
"Sora!"  
The voice was Joe's, coming from the window behind her. Izzy's voice joined in a second later.  
"Sora, how did you...oh, never mind! Get out of there, now!"  
She ignored him, continuing her calm, slow trajectory toward the virus.  
"Can't you hear us? Get out! You're going to get killed!"  
As she reached the great black sphere, Sora stretched out a hand. The virus shrank away from her, leaving a hole in the curved wall through which she quietly passed. Then it closed again behind her, blotting out the boys' frantic shouting.  
Frozen darkness glowered around her in every direction, but it was a hollow globe, and no virus touched her. She floated in midair, looking around...  
And saw him. At the very center of the virus.  
"Tai?" He lay silent and tense, his body still. Floating toward him, she settled next to him on nothingness. Lying there on air, his eyes were squeezed shut, his teeth and fists clenched tightly. Sora's heart wavered at the sight of the pain on his face.  
*Knowing someone forever teaches you a lot about their body language,* she thought, remembering a tree and a hidden secret, *but no one could miss how much he's hurting...* She took a deep breath.  
"Tai, I don't know if you can hear me. Izzy said you might not be able to, and he's usually right. But you know, you always understood me better than anybody when it was important, even if I did confuse you sometimes...and if you can't now, then you sure picked a lousy time to break the habit." Sora smiled weakly. "Of course, I guess my timing wasn't that great, either. If it was, then I would have told you a lot of things before now...but it seemed like you would always be here. You were invincible. Nothing could touch you.  
"Like back there with that Tortomon. You saved my life, Tai. I'm alive because of you. I don't know if you realized it, but that makes you responsible for every beat of my heart since then." She swallowed, hard, and looked down at his face, still torn with pain. "My heart doesn't feel much like beating right now," she said, her voice trailing off to a whisper. "But if you listened real closely, you could hear it breaking..."  
Tears began to run down her cheeks. "Best friends forever, remember? Well, when I said forever, I meant *forever*. As in, today, and tomorrow, and the next day..." Choking back a sob, she looked down at his face, his closed eyes... "Sure, you saved my life, Tai, but what good is it to me without you to share it with? Who am I supposed to confuse if you're not around?" She laughed, bitterly, through her tears.  
"You said you could take care of yourself..." Sora reached out, hesitantly, and touched his cheek. "I should have known better. I should have come with you; I could have done something! Neither of us can hold out on our own, Tai. We're Digidestined, but that doesn't mean we can stand alone!  
"You can't leave, Tai! I need you. We all need you! You're too strong to let it control you, I know that, but you've got to keep it from taking you with it! Hold on, Tai. You've got so much to live for, and so much life ahead of you. Please, hold on..."  
She crumpled then, crying, letting her face fall into her hands as her tears fell silently through the empty space she knelt on, like precious rain. As they touched the globe of fog, it hissed and dissolved in the places they touched, quickly trying to heal itself. Suddenly, Sora clenched her teeth, anger filling her, and sat up, crying out at the unfeeling data of the virus surrounding them.  
"How could this happen? How did this happen to him? He thinks he's a man, but he's not, he's just a kid like me! Like all of us!! Things like this aren't supposed to happen to kids! He's a good person; he didn't do anything to you! Why couldn't you just leave him alone?!"  
An arm of the virus snaked towards them, but Sora whirled on it.  
"Don't touch him!!" she screamed. "Don't you dare touch him!!"  
To her surprise, the virus shrank back from her. She stared at it as it slurped back into the wall of the globe that surrounded them, and then began to shake.  
"If I have the power to command a deadly virus..." Sora turned to look back at Tai, his face twisted in anguish. Her voice dwindled to a whisper. "Then why can't I help you?"  
With a soft sob, she curled up next to him, pillowing her cheek on his chest. Her tears trickled down her cheek and dampened the front of his shirt, and she curled her fingers in the damp fabric, trying to hold on to him with her hands and her heart as she felt him slipping away...  
  
"TK..."  
TK looked up, startled. "Kari! You're awake!"  
Her face was pained. "TK...the virus-" Her voice was cut off by a fit of coughing. TK's eyes widened, and he grabbed her hand.  
"Kari, don't talk," he said quickly, holding tightly to her hand. Kari shook her head, getting her coughing under control.  
"No...you have to...listen!" She gave his hand a little shake, and TK nodded, fighting back tears.  
"I'm listening. Kari-"  
"Shh," she said, silencing him. Her eyes were grave as she struggled to speak. Something was wrong with her chest...it hurt so much, and she could barely breathe, but she had to tell him what she'd figured out! She had to make sure the others didn't make the same mistake that TK and Davis had made!  
"But Kari," Davis began, looking as worried as TK.  
"I said shh," Kari repeated, turning her head with difficulty to look at him. "That means...both of you." She smiled slightly, and then became serious again. "TK...before you came, I...realized what the...virus uses to stay...strong." She felt another bout of coughing coming on, and stifled it with her free hand as TK held desperately to her other hand, feeling helpless and frantic.  
As both boys knelt on either side of her, Kari took a deep, shaky breath.  
"Hate."  
"What?" TK and Davis said at the same time.  
"It feeds on hate...and fear. And sorrow," she added, giving TK's hand a squeeze. "You can't keep...fighting! You're making...it stronger, and...it won't be stopped...until you stop hating."  
"But what about sorrow?" TK said, blinking hard. "How do we deal with that?"  
Kari smiled at him, tenderly. "Rise above it, TK. You're strong...both of you. You can defeat...this thing." Her fingers moved in TK's, and her gaze locked with his. "Don't mourn, TK."  
"Kari..." he moaned, tears filling his eyes. "I'm so sorry! I tried-"  
"I know you did," Kari said, gently. "I...forgive you. It wasn't...your fault..." *He doesn't understand. I have to tell him, or he'll let sadness take him!* But her chest squeezed, as if in a vise, and she couldn't breathe any longer. "You've...got...to...reconcile," she gasped. "Both...of...you. Promise..."  
"I promise," TK said, a sob hanging in his throat.  
Davis swallowed. "I promise."  
"Thank...you," Kari whispered, her breath almost gone. "It....can....."  
Her sentence hung unfinished in the air between them, as she gasped for breath.  
"Kari, hang on!" TK cried, but as he watched, her eyes closed, and her chest stilled...  
"Kari..." Davis breathed, horrified. He lifted his head to stare at TK. "You did this," he growled.  
"No," TK said, tears choking him. "No...she forgave me." Then, suddenly, Kari's words asserted themselves. "Davis, she forgave me! She told me not to mourn her..." He swallowed his tears. "And she said to reconcile. I promised...and you did, too."  
"I..." Davis began, and then stopped, looking at the tear-streaked face of his longtime rival. *My rival, yes...but my enemy?* He frowned, remembering his promise...and doing some deep thought for once in his life. *TK's not my favorite person...but I definitely don't hate him. He could be a good friend, if I would let him.*  
Solemnly, TK held out a hand over Kari's body. The symbolism was not lost on either of them as Davis slowly reached out and clasped TK's hand in his own.  
"I don't hate you, TK. In fact, I guess I'm okay with you."  
"You too," TK said, nodding. "Friends?"  
"Friends," Davis agreed, tightening his grip as they shook on it.  
With a burst of sound and light, the air above them lit up like a neon sign.  
"Ack!"  
"Whoa!"  
Letting go of each other's hands, Davis and TK scrambled backward, staring at the symbol hanging in the air, traced in bright green light.  
"What is that thing?" TK sputtered.  
"The crest of Friendship," Davis murmured, thunderstruck. "But how..."  
Another flash of light blinded them for a moment, and when their eyes cleared, three more symbols shone brightly around Friendship.  
Golden Hope. Pale-pink Light. Red Courage.  
"I don't understand..." Davis said, confused. TK looked around, trying to find an answer...and then let out a whoop.  
"The virus!" he shouted. "Davis, look!"  
"Huh?" Davis said, looking... "How the...?"  
The virus was...vanishing. Wherever the light of their crests touched it, it sizzled and disappeared. The light ate through the darkness like Tai through a large pepperoni pizza, destroying it before it even had time to recover.  
"Incredible!" TK yelled. "I bet Kari knew something like this would happen!"  
"But what's Kari's crest doing up there if she's...." Davis murmured to himself, but TK didn't hear him.  
"I've got to call the others!" He reached for his belt, charged with the sudden distraction from his shock and grief, but his D-Terminal wasn't there. "Shoot...I bet I lost it while the virus had me." He frowned. "Oh, whatever. I can find it later. Davis, where's your D-Terminal?"  
Davis held it up.  
"Give it here," TK said quickly, snatching it. Flipping it open, he hit a few buttons, hoping the virus was no longer interested in blocking signals...  
  
*dee-deep, dee-deep, dee-deep...*  
"Huh?" Joe said, tearing his eyes from the dark ball of virus on his screen to stare at a D-Terminal, still lying on his desk. "Huh? What's Cody's D-Terminal doing here?" he said, reaching for it and opening the lid.  
"Hello? Somebody, anybody, please pick up!"  
"TK?!" Joe cried, hitting the button to reply to the transmission. TK's face appeared in the little window, as Joe knew his had appeared on TK's terminal. "TK, what happened? Where are you?"  
"It's a long story," TK said, his face falling for a second. Joe frowned; something was very wrong... "But there's no time to explain," TK continued, forcing back sadness for later, when he could afford it. "I know what the virus feeds on!"  
"What?!" Izzy yelled from his seat at the computer. "Joe, let me see that thing, quick!"  



	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13  
"You guys!"  
Matt, Mimi and the Digimon looked up in alarm, but the window hanging in midair by the carousel showed only Izzy's face, strangely excited.  
"What is it?" Matt said, not sure what to do. He was dazed with shock...  
"TK just called me, and he's okay!"  
"Huh?" they all said, baffled. Izzy frowned.  
"Never mind, I'll tell you later. Anyway, he told me something vital! The virus feeds on negative emotions! You've got to overcome your fear and anger and all of that sort of thing; it's the only way to beat it!"  
"Well, that sure explains why it's growing so fast on the Internet," Mimi spoke up, a rueful expression on her face. "When I think of some of the hate sites I've run into by mistake..."  
"Not to mention all the paranoids and their sites," Matt added, the ghost of a smile appearing on his lips. "I wonder if Joe has a site anywhere around here..."  
"This is not the time for jokes, you guys," Izzy said firmly.  
"But what are we supposed to do?" Agumon said nervously.  
"Uh-huh," Palmon said, plucking at her petals. "I mean, I know how to battle, but how do I get rid of how scared I am? I'm about ready to start shedding leaves here, I'm so freaked out!"  
"Same here," Gabumon agreed, and then paused, frowning. "Except for the part about the leaves."  
"You'll have to figure that out on your own," Izzy said hurriedly. "I've got to try and reach Sora, and the virus isn't wanting to let me through with a message."  
"Try overcoming your negative emotions," Matt said with a grin.  
Izzy paused. "Good idea!" he exclaimed. "Thanks, Matt!" With that, the window winked out. Matt raised his eyebrows, glancing at Mimi.  
"I was just yanking his chain," he said, surprised.  
"But your idea was a good one," Mimi replied, and closed her eyes. "Let me see..." She let go of Matt to step back and clench her fists at her sides. "I am not afraid," she declared, and then winced. "This isn't working..."  
"Well, keep trying," Matt said, trying to think of something else to do...  
  
"Okay, I'm done recording," Izzy said with a sigh, resting his hands, unmoving, on the keyboard. "Let's give this a go..." Closing his eyes, he spoke firmly to himself. "I'm not scared. I'm perfectly happy. Nothing wrong with me." Opening his eyes, Izzy snorted sarcastically. "Oh, yeah, I'm just fine with the fact that Tai and Sora are going to *die*... Of all the ideas TK's had, this has got to be the worst!"  
"What's your problem?" Joe said, looking over from where he'd been sitting and jittering on the bed.  
"I'm trying to overcome my negative emotions," Izzy stated matter-of-factly. "It's not working."  
"What's so hard about that?" Joe said, shrugging.  
Izzy turned slowly to stare at him.  
"What?" Joe said, sounding injured and a bit confused.  
"Um, Joe? Of all the people I know," Izzy said slowly, "you are the last one I would expect to say that."  
"How come?" Joe said defensively, crossing his arms.  
"Because you're neurotic, that's why!" Izzy exploded. "Look, would you just sit still, or...or go find something new to be allergic to, or at least shut up?! I am trying to let go of my fears here, which for your information is not an easy thing to do, especially when you're scared out of your mind!"  
Joe looked hurt. "I am *not* neurotic...and why shouldn't it be easy? It's just like that mind-over-matter thing we did to get rid of the Bakemon."  
Izzy was staring at him again. Joe scowled.  
"Oh, what's your damage *now*?" he said irritably.  
"'Mind over matter'...Joe, you're a genius!" Izzy crowed.  
"A neurotic genius?" Joe said, still a bit indignant.  
"An *absolute* genius!" Izzy corrected, delighted with his friend's accidental brilliance "Listen, what was that chant you and Sora did?"  
"Uh, 'Bakemon lose your power'?" Joe said, confused as to where all this was leading.  
"Not exactly Shakespeare, but it'll do," Izzy said. "The whole point of those chants is that they build up the confidence to help you achieve your goals, which is exactly what we need right now!" He turned to the screen. "Virus, lose your power!" he shouted.  
"Izzy? Have you completely lost it?" Joe said nervously.  
"It was your idea, now chant!" Izzy shot back. "Virus, lose your power!"  
"Virus, uhm, lose your power," Joe said gamely. They repeated the chant, shouting it as loudly as they could.  
"What's going on up there?" someone yelled through the locked door.  
"Uh, nothing Mom! Just a game!" Izzy yelled back. "When did she get home?" he muttered to Joe. "Virus, lose your power!"  
"Well, try to keep it down!"  
The boys ignored her, chanting together. "I think it's working!" Joe exclaimed. He actually felt better, more…well, confident, like he might have some power over the situation after all. Izzy grinned, nodding. He, too, had begun to feel sure of himself.  
"We're going to make it after all! Virus, lose your power!!"  
With a bang, two symbols exploded into existence in the air.  
Purple Knowledge and dark-blue Reliability.  
"Prodigious!" Izzy yelled, pumping his fist in the air.  
"What on Earth *was* that?!"  
"Just a video game, Mom!" Izzy fudged, quickly going back to his computer. He cracked his knuckles. "Okay, virus, say your prayers! One Email, coming at ya!"  
Joe grinned, amused by his friend's relapse to normal-speak. "What are you waiting for?" he exclaimed. "Punch it!"  
"Right," Izzy agreed, and hit the Send button.  
  
"Sora, this is Izzy!"  
Startled, Sora lifted her head to see a window hovering in midair.  
"Izzy?" she murmured, confused. "What are you doing here?"  
"I've just gotten some important information," he barreled on, not focusing on her, and she realized that it was a prerecorded message.  
*He probably had trouble getting a signal through the virus,* she thought, surprised that he'd gotten one in at all.  
"TK called me on the D-Terminal. He's all right!"  
Sora's mouth dropped open. "You're kidding," she whispered, as pleased as she was stunned. *He's okay! Oh, TK!*  
"He says the virus feeds on emotions! Hatred, gloom, terror, grief, all that delightful sort of thing." Izzy rolled his eyes. "So, to beat the virus, you have to beat those feelings. Hold on to hope, Sora," he said determinedly. "We all know you can do it. Help Tai...and yourself."  
The window winked out. Sora stared at the place where it had been. Izzy's words rang in her mind. *Hold on to hope...help Tai...we all know you can do it...* A strange warmth spread through her at the thought of her friends, still working hard to give her a hand, even when they felt so far away...  
*I'm not alone,* she thought, astonished. *Not even here.* She looked down at Tai's still face. *And...neither is he.*  
"Tai, please keep trying," she whispered, almost inaudibly. Her voice grew in volume and confidence as she spoke. "Be strong. Don't give up." She reached down to take his hand, closing her eyes and listening to his slowing heartbeat, willing it to speed up again. For a split second, Sora imagined that their hearts beat as one...  
"I love you."  
  
"I'm not afraid," Mimi tried again, clenching her fists at her sides. "I'm not-what the hell is that?!"  
Matt's head snapped up, shocked. Mimi *never* swore!  
Then he saw what she was looking at, and let out a few choice words of his own.  
The ball of virus was...rippling. Holes were appearing in the sides, and beams of orange and pale blue light were shooting from them like lances. A soft humming note, like a temple bell, shimmered in the watchers' ears. It became harsher, louder, rising to a thin, keening squeal...  
"I don't get it..." Matt muttered, flabbergasted. "What's-"  
He didn't get any further; at that moment, the roiling ball quite literally exploded. Gobs of virus flew in every direction, as a burst of light left stars dancing in front of Matt's vision. A chunk of virus hit the carousel, rocking it back, and the occupants lunged to grab the poles that held up the fanciful horses to keep from being thrown clear.  
"Whooooa!"  
Blinking sunspots from his eyes, Matt tried to focus on the place where the dark globe had been...  
And cursed again, completely bewildered.  
"Uh, Matt?" Gabumon said, reaching over to tug at his pants leg from the next pole over. "Is it just me...or are those Tai and Sora's crests?"  
The diminutive wolf was right on target. The crests of Courage and Love shone brightly from the former center of the virus, sending orange and blue light dancing across the faces of the stunned onlookers.  
"Wow..." Mimi breathed, staring in awe at the glittering emblems. Suddenly, the carousel shuddered, and everyone on it cried out, distracted from the shining spectacle.  
"What now?" Palmon wailed. Looking down, it was too clear. The lump of virus that had hit them earlier had not flown away.  
It was crawling up over the edge of the carousel.  
And it was the size of a bus.  
"Oh, great, just what we need!" Matt yelled, disgusted. Right when he thought they were getting somewhere, too. "Hey, Gabumon, torch it, will you?"  
"Already on it," Gabumon assured him, starting to rev up a Blue Blaster.  
The virus convulsed suddenly, jerking the drifting carousel sideways and throwing all those present off their feet. They clung to the poles like flies as the virus rocked the carousel again...  
"Okay, scratch that plan!" Matt shouted.  
"That's not the only virus left, either!" Agumon cried. "Look around! That bang didn't kill it-it just relocated it! It's all over the place!"  
He was right. Virus dripped down the floating junk of the 'Net, forming into puddles, and the puddles into pools, and the pools into lakes...  
"If that stuff turns into the Terminator, I'm calling my lawyer!" Matt shouted.  
"Matt!" Mimi screamed, losing her grip as she was buffeted about. She started to slide 'down' the tilted floor of the carousel toward the virus. Matt swore again, viciously.  
Gabumon started to charge up another attack, but Matt stopped him.  
"Hold it! You're going to hit her!" he yelled, thinking fast...  
"I can snag her!" Palmon cried. "Poison Ivy!"  
The vines wrapped around Mimi's wrists, stopping her fall abruptly. She swung back and forth, looking down at the virus in terror...  
That moment of fear was all it needed. A wide tendril of virus sprang from the lump as it began to grow again, reaching for the little Digimon's vines.  
"Palmon, let go!" Mimi shrieked. Automatically, she obeyed, reeling in the vines faster than you could blink. Mimi began to fall again...  
The reaction had been instinctive, but Palmon instantly felt aghast at what she'd done. "Hold on, Mimi! Poi-"  
"No!" Agumon exclaimed, stopping her short. "She's right! You're too powerful to risk!"  
"But that's my Mimi down there!" Palmon wailed. "I'm the weakest Digimon here-I don't even have a Mega level! You've got to let me!"  
"Don't worry about it," Matt said quickly. He was done thinking; it was more than time for action. "I'll get her."  
"What?!" all three Digimon gasped, but Matt was on his way down already, sliding from horse to horse at a terrific pace.  
"I hope he knows what he's doing..." Agumon muttered.  
"Are you kidding? He's nuts!" Gabumon exclaimed.  
"Well, thanks for your vote of confidence!" Matt yelled, dashing to get there in time...  
  
___________________________  
  
Okay, folks, I'm afraid this fic isn't going to be done by the time I leave for Japan. Gomen nasai! (Forgive me!) I promise, I'll do my best to finish it while I'm there and put it up as soon as I get back! (On July 23rd...sigh...) Luv you all, and please, keep reviewing! Jya ne! (See you later!) -from, Bandit O_o 


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14  
Sora sat, stunned, in the space where the virus globe had been just moments before. Where the dark virus had trapped them, there was now a soft shield of orange and blue light, only half the size that the virus ball had been. The presence it gave off was kindly and protective, not frightening and smothering. In fact, it seemed to be generated from the crests of Courage and Love, hanging in midair on either side of her. Frozen, she stared at the shining light where the dark walls had been, utterly confused.  
"What happened...?"  
A soft sound caught her ear, and she looked down.  
Tai was stirring.  
"Tai!" she exclaimed, catching his arm. "Tai, are you okay?"  
His eyes blinked open, and he looked up at her, dazed.  
"Sora?" he murmured, frowning slightly.  
"That's me," Sora nodded, her throat tight again as she smiled at him.  
"Sora...I thought..." He paused, as if trying to remember something, his brow knit in confusion. "I'm, um... What happened?"  
"You beat the virus," Sora said. Tai shook his head.  
"No, you did," he said firmly. "I know that much. I was ready to pack it in for a second there." He paused again, feeling awkward suddenly. "I think I would have, but then you...um..."  
"Yeah..." Sora said, blushing and not quite looking at him.  
Tai nodded, turning a bit red himself. "Right. Well...thanks."  
"Don't mention it," Sora said, biting her lip. She felt like she was going to explode with relief, or nervousness, or...something! *He heard me say it! Well, I think he heard me...oh, shoot, what if he really heard me?*  
Their crests glowed on either side of them as Tai sat up, throwing odd colors across their faces.  
"I..." Tai began again, then hesitated, glancing down. "Ah, what I wanted to say was...well, when I thought I wasn't going to...I mean, you know, see you again, or, um, talk to you...or whatever...and... Look, you're really...um...see, I...I think... I think..." He groaned, running a hand through his hair self-consciously. "I think I'm just no good at this kind of thing."  
Sora giggled, and Tai looked up in surprise. Their eyes met, and suddenly the awkwardness fell away, and it was all okay again.  
"Stupid Tai," Sora said fondly, and leaned forward to give him a tight hug. Resting her head on his shoulder, she sighed happily, closing her eyes. It was so *good* to have him back...  
But of course, with Tai, the serious moments never lasted if he could help it. Grinning, he reached up to give her a noogie. With a shriek of laughter, she swatted his hand away and tackled him sideways. In the weird gravity, they wobbled and spun dizzily within the walls of their shield of light. Sora yelped as she started to float away, and Tai caught her by the hand and pulled her to him...or him to her? It was impossible to tell. Laughing, he latched his arms around her waist from behind and let the world turn around them, the crests looking like streaks of color tracing a protective meshwork on the light around them.  
"Nice acrobatics, Tai," Sora teased. "I'm impressed."  
"Hey, I learned from the best," he teased back. "Your friend Mimi's a natural, unlike me. When I was getting used to it, I used to be like a floundering fish, you know?"  
"Oh, yeah, used to. Like it was ages ago, instead of a few hours," Sora laughed.  
"It feels like ages," Tai said softly, his breath ruffling her hair. She sighed, turning her head to look at him.  
Their cheeks brushed. "Yeah...I know..." she whispered, suddenly aware of the warmth of his arms around her, and how close he really was. A few hours before, she might have hesitated. But then, a lot can change in a few hours…  
Slowly, she reached up with one hand to touch his cheek, shifting in his arms to turn her face towards his. Tilting up her chin, she gently guided his lips to hers.  
The world spun.  
  
More than a little distracted, Mimi let out a shriek as she lurched downward toward the hungry virus...  
"Gotcha!" Matt shouted, triumphant. Mimi stopped with a jolt as he caught her. His hand wrapped tightly around her slender wrist; he was braced against a nearby pole, to her left. Mimi swung left to dangle from his grasp, breathing hard.  
"How-" she began, looking up at him, but he interrupted, his eyes intense.  
"You've got to stop being afraid!" he insisted, holding tightly to her hand. "You're making it strong!"  
"I didn't mean..."  
"Hold on to me-I've got you. Here, grab my wrist," Matt said quickly. Mimi wrapped her fingers tightly around his wrist, holding on for dear life as the virus buffeted them about like a pair of dolls. "Good girl," Matt said between shakes, giving her a comforting smile. "We're going to be all right now. I won't let go, I promise!"  
"Matt..." Mimi whispered, touched. "Why are you doing this for me?"  
"You're my friend!" Matt said firmly, just before they were thrown sideways again. "Ow!" He winced, unable to let go of hand or pole long enough to rub at the newest of a multitude of bruises. *At least I have something to brace against,* he thought ruefully, wishing he could think of some way to protect Mimi against the painful jostling of the virus. "Friends take care of each other," he continued, his face serious.  
Mimi was amazed. *He's risking life and limb…just for me? I don't think a single other human being has ever done something like this for me! Ever!*  
"You know, Matt, if you ever want my life-" *wham!* "Ouch! You can have it," she finished, with a slight grin.  
"You mean that?" Matt asked, stunned enough to almost forget his battered body.  
Her hazel eyes were suddenly warm, in spite of the danger of the situation. "I mean every word of it."  
*bang!*  
Warm green Friendship, sweet turquoise Sincerity. Up on the top edge of the listing carnival ride, Palmon felt a rush of strength go through her.  
"Oh!"  
"Whoa!" Gabumon cried.  
"What, did you feel it too?" Palmon asked, a bit breathless.  
"Are you kidding? Who could miss that?" Gabumon said, just as startled. "What was it?"  
"I don't-hey!" There was no mistaking *this* feeling. Palmon shoved out from the carousel, fast, to keep from breaking it in her sudden growth spurt. "Palmon Digivolve to...TOGEMON!"  
Gabumon followed. "Gabumon Digivolve to...GARURUMON!"  
Green and turquoise sparkles began to appear around them as they towered into their Champion forms.  
"Um, you guys?" Agumon said, confused. "What's happening to you?"  
"I'm not sure," Garurumon thundered, "but it feels really familiar! But...different, somehow, too..."  
There was a sudden crash and a flash of blue-green light...  
"Togemon!"  
"Garurumon!"  
"DNA-Digivolved to..."  
A mighty roar sounded through the Internet.  
"SENTINELMON!"  



	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15  
Emptiness was a still, strange place. Thin, gray sadness, like a sky, over a sea of rippling memories that *hurt*. A smiling face, framed by drifting lavender hair. An email, just when it was needed the most. A slap in the face, a kind word, a push in the right direction...  
You never know a treasure until it's gone.  
Sitting there with his face hidden in his dusty hands, Ken felt like a shell. Half the healing he'd done since leaving behind his identity as the Emperor had been because of Yolei. Now, it was as if all of that newfound warmth had vanished with her.  
Why?  
*Now there's a loaded question,* Ken thought ironically, shaking his head. *Why what? Why didn't she go while she could? Why couldn't I let go? Why do I hurt everyone I care about?  
*Why do I wish I could die, too?*  
With him to the end, she'd said. Well, he was still around, and she wasn't. That promise was worthless now... But it hadn't been her fault, or anyone's fault! A mindless freak of nature, combined with the shortsighted eagerness of two children who were adults inside, yet not always ready for adult responsibilities...that was what had caused this!  
*It's not fair! It was an accident, a stupid accident...one decision made differently, and she would still be standing here with me!  
*Why didn't I tell her I cared while I still could?*  
He could almost hear her voice, shouting, laughing, crying, joking, whispering...  
"Ken..."  
Whispering...  
*Don't I wish it was real...*  
"Ken." Something brushed his side, softly. "You okay?"  
"Wha..." His heart leaping into his throat, he turned.  
Deep purple eyes met his.  
"Why are you crying?" Yolei whispered, her dust-streaked face warming into a small smile. "Look at the sky," she continued, as Ken gaped at her, thunderstruck. "It's so blue. We're going to be all right...don't cry any more."  
She was right; the dust was settling, showing bright blue sky.  
"I..." Ken began, and trailed off, stammering. "I...I-"  
"You're safe," Yolei said, her voice gaining strength. She squinted momentarily, trying to focus on his face without her glasses. Giving that up, she painfully lifted herself on one elbow for a closer look, winced shortly, and then grinned at him. "That's what matters. You're kind of battered-looking," here she laughed, and the laugh turned into a cough which she quickly brought under control, "but you'll live, and so will I. I must look ever worse than you," she added, with a rueful smile.  
"You could say that," Ken choked, his voice wobbly as he managed a smile. Yolei looked carefully at him, and must have seen something of what he'd gone through during the last few minutes in his face, because she sat up further and held out a hand comfortingly.  
"Here...you look like somebody ran you through a fine-toothed comb."  
*Somebody did,* Ken thought. "You do, too."  
"It was more like a wood chipper," Yolei said with another grimace as she tried to move her legs. "Ouch! That hurts... Hey, I'm not holding this out here for my health, she teased, waving her hand slightly. Ken stared at it, still not sure if it was really there. He slowly reached to take it, hesitant, unwilling to quite believe, for fear of finding that this was all some kind of trick...  
Then his fingers closed around hers, and he was suddenly sure.  
"Yolei," he gasped, and pulled her into a hug. "Oh, Yolei, don't ever scare me like that again!"  
"Hey, it's okay," she said, giving him an awkward pat on the back. "Don't worry, I don't like the idea of an encore any more than you do."  
Ken grinned. Yolei; matter-of-fact, tactless, silly, crazy, wonderful Yolei; she was back! "I love you, you know," he said, with a quiet smile. She pulled back, studied him for a moment, and then returned the smile.  
"You do, don't you," she said, with a touch of something like wonder coloring her voice. Ken burst out laughing, and she gave him a confused look. "What? What did I say?" She shook her head, with an I-give-up roll of her eyes. "Oh, never mind. If it makes you feel better, I love you too...you weird, weird person."  
"Weird? That makes two of us," Ken smiled. He moved to sit next to her, sliding an arm around her shoulders. "I'm glad you're okay," he sighed.  
"It's good to know," Yolei agreed, and they settled into each other's company to wait for help to arrive.  
  
A deafening roar shattered the silence within Tai and Sora's little shield. Breaking the kiss, they looked around in confusion as the protective light winked out like a popped soap bubble.  
"Tai? What-"  
He frowned. "I don't know...no, hang on! Look over there!"  
Sora looked-and her breath caught in her throat.  
A massive form, two-legged like a human but with the head of a wolf and long, shaggy fur covering those parts of its skin that could be seen, loomed over them. It looked neither male nor female, but wore a simple green tunic and brown pants torn off at the knee, as well as heavy leather belts around its athletic waist and across one shoulder, as well as an archer's gauntlets.  
Its brown fur was streaked with green, but stranger still, what looked like rose vines traced their way across its entire body, like stripes or the veining on a leaf. A sword was clenched in its right claw, and a bow and arrows slung across its back, attached to the shoulder belt. Its eyes were intelligent, and the narrow muzzle crinkled in a smile as it looked down at them.  
"Is that...Mimi?" Sora murmured weakly, staring up at the enormous beast.  
Tai goggled. "Forget Mimi-that's Matt up there!"  
They were both right. Mimi perched on the creature's right shoulder; Matt stood firmly on its left. Giggling, Mimi swung her legs cheerfully over the new Digimon's shoulder.  
"Meet Sentinelmon!"  
"Sentinelmon?" Tai and Sora chorused.  
""Don't you recognize us?""  
The double voice was familiar.  
"Palmon?"  
"Gabumon?"  
""One and the same,"" Sentinelmon agreed. ""...No pun intended.""  
"Well, are you going to stand there all day with your jaws dislocated, or get up here so we can flatten this thing?" Matt yelled.  
Tai and Sora exchanged glances, and nodded. "Right," Tai yelled back. "We'll get up there as soon as you get down close enough for us to climb on. Let's finish this!"  
"There's me Taichi!" Matt grinned, as Sentinelmon obligingly extended its free hand for them to step onto. It took only seconds to transfer the two humans onto its shoulder. Agumon was already waiting for them, and he and Tai were reunited the minute the boy could leap from hand to shoulder and grab his Digimon in a delighted bear hug.  
"Tai! I thought you were a goner!"  
"So did I, buddy," Tai said with a rueful grin. "But that's okay now. We're all back together again, and unless I miss my guess, this virus is about to get a beating it'll never forget!"  
"If it's even around to," Matt agreed, and looked at Mimi. "Well, Captain? What now?"  
"Hey, since when am I the captain?" Mimi asked, sounding pleased, if a little surprised.  
"You said you wanted to prove you could fight," Matt said with a shrug. "Well, here's your chance!"  
"I think I already did that," Mimi snorted.  
Matt grinned. "Can't argue with you there...but still, I think you deserve to call the shots for a while. Besides, I'm more than ready to take a break from being the leader of this little army."  
"In that case..." Mimi murmured, a surprisingly fierce grin spreading across her face. "Let's see what you guys can do! Go for it, Sentinelmon!"  
""Will do!"" it chorused, and shot toward the regrouping virus, swinging its sword. ""Sentinel's Blade!""  
The sword impacted with a mighty flash of light that blossomed across the seething virus, melting it like ice. When the spots cleared from the four humans' vision, there was a gaping hole in the mass of black. However, just as before, the edges of the ragged hole quivered, twitched, and began to surge back together. The Digidestined winced.  
"Not again," Matt groaned.  
"Well, obviously that didn't work," Mimi shouted. "Got anything else up your sleeves?"  
Sentinelmon grinned. ""Oh, that was just the appetizer,"" it chuckled. Reaching back over its shoulder, it grabbed its bow and an arrow, nocking the projectile into the bowstring and drawing it back. ""Now for the main course.""  
Watching, Matt noticed something; the arrow was fledged with leaves, and the 'point' was nothing but a rose!  
"Oh, this is great!" he yelled, his stomach sinking. "Let's throw flowers at it, that'll really fix things! Maybe it'll decide to be friends with us!"  
The beast turned its shaggy head to look at him, and one wise eye winked. ""Never underestimate flower power,"" it said sagely, and turned back to its quarry. ""You'd be surprised what a little sprout can do.""  
"Whatever," Matt said with a doubtful grimace.  
"Uh, Matt, Mimi?" Sora said tensely. "That virus doesn't look too happy. Any time now would be really good..."  
"I don't know...are you sure this'll work?" Matt said. Mimi snorted.  
"No. That's why we have to trust our Digimon, Yama."  
He glanced over at Mimi. "Well, if you say so..."  
"Yup," Mimi agreed. They faced forward, raising their fists as a wall of virus shot out toward the little group.  
"FIRE!!"  
"Budding Vengeance!!!" Sentinelmon bellowed, and released the bowstring.  
The arrow left its bow with a soft rustle of leaves, almost silent in the gurgling cacaphony of the writhing virus. It flew softly across the gap between children and virus, with their hopes, even their lives, riding along on its fragile trajectory.  
It buried itself up to the fledging in the dark tide of the virus, like a little green flag planted in a huge mountain. And then...  
It dissolved.  
And the virus kept on coming.  
"Oh, no," Mimi whispered. Matt grimaced and swore. Tai reached for Sora, gathering her into his arms as Agumon came to stand between them and the speedily approaching virus.  
Back in the real world, in the computer room and in the street, the Digidestined held their breath, or covered their eyes, or simply stared, riveted by their leaders' last stand...  
Her face buried in Tai's shoulder, Sora braced herself for the impact of the virus, knowing they were all too weak to fight it this time. Every fragment of the moment seemed to crystallize in her mind as the virus barreled toward them.  
The tears glistening in Mimi's eyes even as she looked at her friends for the last time; the defiant look on Matt's face as he stood at his Digimon's shoulder, one hand resting lightly on Sentinelmon's neck as he faced down death; Agumon's show of devotion as he tried to protect them, willing to die for his human friends; the warmth of Tai's arms around her and the soft sound of his heartbeat in the almost silent world. They were bright, clear, intense images, stamped indelibly on her heart. And as she stood, in the split seconds before impact, she closed her eyes and thought.  
*At least...  
*At least we're all together.*  



	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16  
Back in the computer room, Joe stood behind Izzy's chair, his hands over his eyes as the virus arced toward his friends.  
"I can't watch..." he whimpered. The silence of the computer room seemed to stretch indefinitely...  
A soft noise caught his ear. It sounded almost like a faint choking sound... Slowly, Joe peered out from between his fingers.  
"Izzy? I...is it over yet?"  
Izzy was goggling at his screen, slack-jawed with shock.  
"J-Joe, c'mere for a second..."  
"Why?"  
"Because you have to see this to believe it!" Izzy exclaimed, snapping his mouth shut and beginning to type frantically. "Oh, I have so got to analyze this!"  
"Huh?" Joe muttered, leaning to look over his shoulder. "What the..."  
Then he saw the image on the screen, and his jaw dropped farther than Izzy's.  
"If I didn't know better...I'd say that looked like a..."  
Izzy nodded. "That's right, Joe. A plant."  
  
When he wasn't immediately struck down by a thousand pounds of seething digital deathtrap, Matt warily opened one eye, then the other. The virus was still there, hovering mere feet from the stolid Sentinelmon...but it was...  
Green?  
"What on earth...?" Matt murmured, standing up from his sprawled position. He'd ducked for cover at the last second, acting on sheer instinct. Now, as he stood, the virus came into focus again. It was indeed green, although not completely. Most of it was still black, but the green part was growing...  
"Matt?" Mimi's voice was thick with confusion. "Are those...rose vines?"  
They were indeed. And they were growing at an incredible speed, wrapping around the virus faster than it could multiply, sending shoots deep into it, riddling it with hair-thin roots and clinging to it with long golden thorns. It seemed to writhe within the plant's grasp, shuddering and bucking, but the vines were flexible and held on easily. They had stopped the virus in the very nick of time.  
"Whoa..." Matt whispered, staring at the network of vines chaining the virus. "It's totally stopped growing!"  
"All right!" Tai shouted gleefully. "How do you like that? A little taste of your own medicine isn't so fun, is it?"  
Sora grinned. From the very heart of the plant, right smack in the middle of the thickest vine, protruded the tail end of an arrow.  
""Told you so,"" Sentinelmon said with appropriate smugness.  
"What an attack!" Agumon said admiringly.  
""Can't argue with you there, little friend,"" Sentinelmon said cheerfully. ""But keep watching; you haven't seen the best part.""  
Before they could ask what it meant, there was a soft sound like a harp string. The vines quivered, and all over the tons of virus, spots of red and white and gold color blossomed into life.  
"Roses!" Mimi squealed.  
The virus contracted like a tortured thing, squeezing in on itself and jerking like a beating heart. Then, with a high-pitched keening wail, it dissolved into a billion tiny white sparkles, which silently winked out of existence.  
Vines, virus, and all; it was gone.  
  
"Prodigious!" Izzy whooped, pumping his fist in the air.  
"I can't believe it," Joe gasped. "All that virus...it's just gone!"  
"Joe, we did it!" Izzy cheered. The taller boy grinned, pushing his glasses back into place from where they'd drifted down his nose during the commotion.  
"You know," he murmured, "we really did... So I guess there's just one thing left to do."  
"What?" Izzy asked.  
Joe grinned. "Bring our friends home."  
  
As the last of the virus vanished, TK and Davis let out a shout of triumph.  
"YESSS!!"  
They exchanged high fives, grinning like maniacs; they'd watched the whole nail-biting episode on Davis's D-Terminal. The sounds of their friends celebrating drifted from the speaker of the little device; Tai's victory whoop, Sora's delighted laughter, Mimi and Matt's voices as they both tried to tell the other how much they cared at the same time.  
Then everyone's voices ceased, as their images disappeared from the Net in a soft shimmer of light.  
Davis let out a long sigh of relief, grinning at TK. "Well, that's that."  
TK sighed as well, but there was more dejection in it than relief. "Not quite..."  
Patamon's voice from behind them startled them both.  
"Um...TK? You might want to think twice about that..."  
"Huh?" TK muttered, half-turning to look over his shoulder...  
"Takaishi Takeru," came the familiar voice, scolding him lightly, "you haven't written me off already, have you?"  
TK's blue eyes widened, filling with tears as he took in the smiling face of his best friend.  
"Kari...?"  
Her smile widened. "Angels always come back."  
"Kari!!" TK shouted, and then she stretched out her arms for him, and he was there. Davis sat back, watching silently as the reunited pair hugged each other tightly, tears running down their faces as they laughed and cried.  
Patamon winged over to land next to the quiet gogglehead.  
"They sure look happy, don't they?" the little Digimon said, his voice pleased. Davis nodded.  
"Yeah," he admitted, and the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile of his own. "Yeah, they sure do."  
  
Back in the Digital World, Cody was half running, half sliding down the slope toward his friends with Armadillomon in his wake, raising a huge cloud of dust.  
"Ken! Yolei!"  
Coughing, he struggled out of the cloud to see them sitting with their arms around each other's shoulders, grinning at him.  
"Hey, Cody, this whole mess just got settled," Yolei mock-scolded. "Don't go kicking it all up again, will you?"  
"You're okay!" the younger boy gasped, as a grin lit up his face. "You guys..."  
Ken nodded. "Yup, we're a little worse for wear and tear, but it's nothing fatal. Mind giving us a hand up this slope? I think Yolei's leg might be broken, and my ankle isn't in such great shape either."  
"It can't be that bad," Yolei said, trying to move the limb. She let out a hiss of pain. "Okay, so maybe it can," she gasped, with a rueful expression. "I hate to say it, Ken, but you might be right."  
Ken nodded. "It's okay. We'll get you back to the Digiport, and once you're back in the human world, medical attention's just a phone call away." Standing up, he grinned, shifting his weight. "Hm. It's not healed by any means, but it's not as bad as it was at first. Here..." He crouched and slid his arms under her knees and shoulders.  
"Ken?" Cody said, in an inquiring tone.  
"Just help me keep my balance," Ken said, and stood, Yolei cradled in his arms. "Never let it be said that I don't bend over backwards for you, Inoue Miyako." She giggled.  
"The thought never crossed my mind."  
"Good," Ken said, and with Cody at their side and Armadillomon clearing an easy path, they started the climb back to the world above...  



	18. Epilogue

Epilogue  
It was hard to fit all twelve of the Digidestined, as well as most of their Digimon, into Izzy's room. Extremely hard...but compared to the events of three weeks before, it was nothing.  
From his seat on the bed, scrunched in next to Sora, with Joe and Cody-Upaamon in his arms-crowded in on either side of them, Tai looked around the room with a smile. Things were as back to normal as they could possibly be, considering all the revelations made during the battle with the virus, which Izzy had dubbed the Black Despair in a moment of surprising poetic inspiration.  
Izzy himself was sitting in the computer chair (where else), with Davis perched on his desk. Mimi and Matt sat on the floor by the bed, their Digimon next to them, and TK and Kari had grabbed the pillows off the bed and were sitting over by the door with Patamon and Salamon.  
Yolei got the only other chair in the room, an overstuffed thing dragged in from the living room, in honor of the blue fiberglass cast she wore. The entire cast was covered in multi-colored scribbles, including an ink claw-print from Hawkmon. Ken was perched protectively on the arm of her chair, and they both also held their Digimon.   
Looking down again at Koromon, peacefully sleeping in his lap, Tai smiled. It had been a long, tough haul, but they'd gotten through it, together.  
"There's one thing I don't understand," Davis spoke up from his seat on the desk. "What happened back there after the virus got destroyed, Kari? I could have sworn you were...you know..." He frowned. "I mean, I saw you stop breathing! How do you fix something like that?"  
Kari shrugged. "It's pretty simple, really. I'd already figured out that something like that might happen by the time it did. See, my crest is Light...but that virus was the essence of Darkness. My antithesis, I guess you could say. I was already starting to feel the effects back there; I was cold, and scared, and kind of shaky. It must have been just waiting for me to be weakened enough to strike, and when I was...attacked...it got its opportunity."  
TK shivered, remembering. "So that's what happened?"  
"Exactly," Kari agreed, taking his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. "The actual blows didn't hurt me *that* much; it was the virus trying to strangle the light inside of me that almost did me in."  
"You say 'almost'," Sora said, curious in spite of herself. "So what stopped it?"  
"TK and Davis," Kari said with a smile, "and eventually all the rest of you."  
"You knew!" Davis exclaimed suddenly. "You knew the whole time, didn't you? We could still save you...that's why you told us to make up!"  
"Yup," Kari said. "When you two reconciled, your friendship and hope burned off the virus. That kind of lifted the pressure on me, and then you lot on the Internet took it off entirely with your Vengeful Blossoms, or whatever they were."  
"Budding Vengeance," Tsunomon and Tanemon corrected at the same time, and giggled.  
"Whatever," Kari grinned. "Anyway, after your, um, Budding Vengeance, I only had my original injuries to heal, and that was just a matter of time."  
"I don't care if they were called Aggravated Petunias," Tai said with a shrug. "They saved my sister, and that's all I need to know. Thanks, you guys."  
Both little Digimon blushed.  
"It was nothing," they chorused.  
"I think it was a lot," Kari said warmly. "You two were great back there; TK and Tai told me all about it, and you were both really brave. I'm impressed."  
"Well...maybe it was a *little* something," Tanemon said eagerly. The room roared with laughter.  
"Yup, things are just about back to normal," Tai said with cheerful weariness as the laughter died down, putting an arm around Sora's waist. She shook her head.  
"To the contrary, Taichi," she said, raising an eyebrow at Matt and Mimi, their heads bent together as they shared some small joke, TK and Kari's intertwined fingers, and the concerned caring in Ken's eyes as he watched Yolei's smiling face. With a small chuckle, "The world will never be the same."  
  
Back in the Digital World, undergrowth was already beginning to grow over the battered trail left by the rogue Tortomon. However, a path had been pushed through the light vegetation to one particular tree. On the bark of that tree, the characters for the names of two proven-again heroes stood out in carved lines, faded to a pale brown with time and weathering. The portentous carving had stood silent and unattended to until the day before, when its creator had paid it a quiet visit.  
A fresh cut in the wood showed up orange against the bark, finishing the carving begun three weeks and an eternity before.  
The heart was complete.  
  
**OWARI**  
  
(c) Bandit 2001  
  
(Props to everyone on ff.net who reviewed and kept me going long enough to finish this fic with your support and encouragement. I love you guys! Peace, and may the Dudefish be with you. -Bandit O_o)  



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